Once this guy spots you, good luck escaping.
"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: The Next Chapter
Teleportation is an awesome power to have. Even with the risks involved, it's hands down the best way to travel in fiction and in fact, 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, spring the Damsel in Distress from her cell, 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.
This can be combined 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 whack the hero upside the head. However, don't expect them to just shoot the hero... or teleport half of them somewhere else.
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; alternatively, they may travel through the shadows. 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, or at the very least requiring them to have some sort of MacGuffin to pull off.
Sub-Trope of Antagonist Abilities. Compare Invisible Jerkass, a Sister Trope. See also Mobile Menace and Sinister Surveillance, the latter running on the same principle as this trope.
Not to be confused with Offscreen Teleportation, which is when someone merely seems to have such a power because we never see how they manage to be somewhere else so quickly; this trope is about villains who canonically have teleportation powers.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Chrono Crusade: Aion has this as just one of his many abilities upon his ascension as one of the Sinners during the World, used most prominently to hurl Chrono in devil mode away from him as he's having his way with Azmaria before allowing his minions to hold him down and make him watch.
- Day Break Illusion: Cerebrum can teleport even outside of Daemonia space.
- Harukanaru Toki no Naka de: The members of the Oni Clan (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.
- Marvel Future Avengers: The Masters of Evil can appear and disappear via a combination of science and magic.
- My Hero Academia:
- The only character with a teleporting Quirk is Kurogiri, a member of the League of Villains. While there is more to him, the guy's power is primarily used to transport villains onto the scene unannounced, and then withdraw them before they can be caught. This causes a problem for the League after his arrest...
- The villain behind the League also possesses a warping Quirk, which takes the heroes by surprise when he reveals himself during the Hideout Raid. Unlike the above which can go wherever he pleases with specific co-ordinates, this version can only transport others to himself and near people he trusts. This is also held by the Doctor's Johnny Nomu, who controls it using dials jammed in his brain. This also works if anyone part of the League is somewhere the others want to be, so they're warped near them.
- During the Final Battle, Monoma is able to steal the imprisoned Kurogiri's Quirk, giving the heroes the ability to teleport in reinforcements and separate their enemies. Unfortunately, Spinner manages to awaken Kurogiri, resulting in the League of Villains once again getting access to their main teleporter and quickly turning the tables on the heroes.
- Naruto:
- Obito Uchiha is a villain and one of the only three characters who can really teleport. The others are the Second and Fourth Hokages, but they are both dead and their power was much more limited: Obito 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. Until ending up as the Arc Villain proper, the way he used it to directly influence things in the present was incredibly minimal: he delayed a group to let two people hold their fight uninterrupted, saved one of his allies once, took down two minor enemies. and retrieved a body part from a deceased former member of his organization and killed one that defected. 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, but at this point it can be put down to Complexity Addiction. Things would be far too simple for him if he just teleported around taking and doing what he needs to get the plan done, so he has to make things unnecessarily complicated by involving a bunch of unconnected criminals and the entire ninja world when he could just as easily have done that without involving anyone.
- 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.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
- The only characters 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, but she's actually cheating through use of time travel. Negi also does this in the final fight between them until both lose the ability.
- 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.
- One Piece:
- There is only one power that more or less amounts to teleportation. Kuma can teleport anything he wants anywhere by 'pushing' them. Well, effectively. Presumably it can't go through walls very well.
- In addition, Enel can effectively teleport with his lightning powers, either by phasing through conductive material or transforming into lightning. Admiral Kizaru can also use his light-based powers to teleport.
- Trafalgar Law is a subversion since he's an ally of the Straw Hats, but can swap the position of nearby people and objects (including himself) as one of his various abilities. It's still limited in range though, and needs prior setup, unlike the above examples.
- Van Augur of the Blackbeard Pirates has become a teleporter after the Time Skip with his Warp Warp Fruit.
- Pretty Cure: The franchise has teleportation as a common villain ability. They teleport whenever they lose. Some villains don't have this ability, though.
- Princess Tutu: Kraehe and Mytho after his Face–Heel Turn gain the ability. They use it for escapes and other convenient transportations, but they can only teleport around the town (and apparently to wherever the Raven was sealed in).
- Rage of Bahamut: Genesis: Senior demons have teleporting powers, and when combined with their immunity to non-magical weapons, it makes them extremely difficult to kill. Even being fried by a divine Wave Motion Sword wasn't enough to stop Azazel from bugging out when a battle turned against him.
- Sailor Moon:
- Many of the villains 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? Sapphire of the Dark Moon Tribe did this... once, but he dies anyways. Eudial really gets the bad end of it, as she actually drives her car to and from the villain headquarters.
- Another amusing example is Tuxedo Mask who has made a Face–Heel Turn when Brainwashed by Queen Beryl. While he is evil, he has the teleportation power, but appears to lose the ability after he is broken free.
- The Seven Deadly Sins: Golgius explains specifically that this is his power to the protagonists. In reality, he lied. He actually has the power to turn invisible.
- Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-: Secondary antagonist Seishiro can very dramatically teleport using magic.
- Similar to the Zone of the Enders example below, the TV series Zone of the Enders: Dolores, i has Dolores fight her "younger sister" who is capable of this, only to unlock the technique midway through their final fight.
Comic Books
- Ambush Bug would count from his villain days.
- The Attack of the Annihilator: The titular Big Bad teleports himself away to escape from Batgirl and Supergirl.
- The Avengers: Count Nefaria explains his escaping his supposed death in Uncanny X-Men (1963) issue #97 as being from using a teleportation system he'd previously used for his henchmen in those issues.
- Captain America:
- During Mark Gruenwald's run, there were a few months in a row where it seemed every villain teleported away after defeat. Cap even lampshaded it, noting just how sick of it he was getting.
- This is a primary ability of Sidewinder, the founder of the Serpent Society, who uses it as a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card for his team — in fact, it's one of the incentives touted for joining his Weird Trade Union. Naturally, he played a part in the above period.
- Captain Atom: Ghost is a scientist who created a teleporter and used it to turn into a super-villain.
- Doom Patrol: Warp, a member of the Brotherhood of Evil, can open portals that permit travel to other locations. He can also, if he desires, use it to teleport people away from him (though the location and even time they might wind up at is occasionally random).
- In The Flash, 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.
- Fray: One of Icarus' Mooks starts badmouthing him after he walks off into the distance. Seconds later, Icarus is right behind him, demanding that the mook either challenge him then and there or bite off his own finger in penance. He bites off the finger.
- Judge Dredd: In the Dark Judges' third appearance, they used teleportation devices brought back from their own dimension to jump all over Mega City One to spread their lethal brand of justice and keep the Judges from interfering.
- In Lanfeust, the villain Thanos can teleport instantly to any location he memorized... minus his clothes.
- Legion of Super-Heroes:
- In One of Us Is a Traitor!, the villain Nemesis Kid develops the power to teleport himself away when he is being cornered by the entire Legion.
- In Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) issue #315, "Judgment", when the Legion storms their headquarters, the members of the Dark Circle teleport themselves and their planet's whole population away. The only thing left is their robes.
- In The Great Darkness Saga, the Master of Darkness can open dimensional portals to teleport his Servants to anywhere and retrieve them at any time.
- In Locke & Key, Dodge's possession of the Anywhere Key acts on much the same principle.
- Madame Mirage: One of the various villains easily dispatched by Madame Mirage is a cowboy-themed teleporter called Cotton Eyed Joe.
- The Marvel Family: In "Sivana's Undersea Kingdom" from issue #62, Dr. Sivana builds an "Atom Trasmitter" to teleport several whole towns to the deep of the ocean, and to send himself and his ship away when the Marvels try to stop him.
- Robin (1993): Dodge starts out as a wannabe hero with a stolen prototype teleportation device. When the thing malfunctions while he's allowing his untrained arrogance to endanger a group of hostages it ends up fused to him. His anger at Robin for saving the hostages makes him decide he'd rather play a villain.
- Spider-Man: The Spot is able to open multiple black portals anywhere. He started out as something of a joke, but after getting a better understanding of how his powers worked and becoming more creative with using them, he became far more dangerous.
- Superman:
- In The Unknown Supergirl, Mad Scientist Lesla-Lar develops her own teleport ray, which she uses to bring a sleeping Kara into Kandor, and a teleport bracelet which she uses to travel back to the Bottle City.
- In The Girl with the X-Ray Mind, Lesla-Lar develops a teleporting device which she uses to kidnap a sleeping and helpless Lena Thorul.
- In Crypt of the Frozen Graves, thanks to the Frisco syndicate's teleportation machine, their crooks can appear and disappearing without trace after stealing or killing a target, and nuisances can be sent into space.
- In Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, Lex Luthor equips a Superman decoy with teleporting beams.
- In Who Took the Super out of Superman?, Xviar uses several alien trinkets to teleport Superman's worst enemies in Clark Kent's apartment. After his trap's successfully lured Superman out, Xviar teleports the nine villains across the planet to force Superman to battle until triggering a Super-Power Meltdown.
- In The Plague of the Antibiotic Man, Amalak uses a teleportation beam to bring Nam-Ek to his spaceship when the latter is fighting Superman.
- In Strangers at the Heart's Core, the criminal trio "The Visitors" own a device called the "Voodoo Machine" which can be used to teleport objects or people into their secret lair.
- In Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, an alien race who intend to destroy Earth (or, alternatively, enslave humanity) use dimensional portals to get around. Their coming is usually heralded by a flash of light or a bang and a pillar of smoke.
- In When the Symbioship Strikes!, the villain Brain Wave builds a teleporting machine capable to abduct heroes like Power Girl and the Justice Society of America, teleport troops around, and even move one whole city from one dimension to another.
- In War World, the villain Mongul teleports away, making off with the Key to control the eponymous super-weapon before Superman and Martian Manhunter can stop him.
- In From Eternia— With Death!, when Skeletor is caught by Superman, his body flashes before vanishing.
- In Supergirl (1982) #23, Supergirl fights a mutant that has the ability to dissolve his body and rematerialize far away. Said mutant uses this power to run away from Supergirl at one point.
- In Brainiac: Rebirth, when Brainiac's ship suddenly disappears and not even Superman's telescopic vision can find him, Clark guesses his ship has warp capabilities, and it might be on the other side of the galaxy by now.
- Subverted in The Einstein Connection. Luthor declares that Superman cannot trap him because he has just invented a teleporter, and vanishes. However, Superman only needs to take a look on the device to realize that it is an invisibility machine and Luthor tried to send him in a wild goose chase.
- In Many Happy Returns, the Fatalist teleports to get away from Linda Danvers when she decides to bash his head in.
- In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), Darkseid uses Boom Tubes to transport his troops from Apokolyps to Themyscira.
- In The Hunt for Reactron, after tricking Supergirl into fighting Flamebird and Nightwing, the sorceress Mirabai teleports the three heroes into a alley in the middle of Metropolis.
- In Death & the Family, after getting her clan's relics, Silver Banshee casts a spell and teleports away before Supergirl can stop her.
- In Good-Looking Corpse, Kara has to fight a group of villains that use dimensional doors to move around and strike heroes unexpectedly.
- In Last Daughter of Krypton, Reign gets her Worldkiller soldiers beamed up from their ship to the battlefield when Kara shows up to stop her from destroying New York.
- In Supergirl: Crucible, Roho conjures glowing blue dimensional portals (with a literal snap of his fingers) to move himself and his cronies around.
- In Escape from the Phantom Zone, the villain Magog owns a device which allows him to teleport himself away when in danger.
- In The Killers of Krypton, Splyce battles Supergirl amidst the ruins of Krypton, but before being defeated she uses her master Harry Hokum's teleporting device to send both her and Supergirl to Hokum's lair, the Citadel.
- Drang the Destroyer: Alien witch Fantasta captures Linda Danvers (Supergirl's secret identity) by teleporting her into Fantasta's spaceship.
- DC/Marvel: Supergirl/Blade: Mojo can teleport his targets into and out of his dimension with the push of a button.
- Thor (Marvel Comics): Loki would be a poor master of black magic if he could not teleport at will.
- Wonder Woman:
- In Judgment in Infinity, the Adjudicator has the power to teleport himself or anyone across dimensions.
- Circe, as one of the most powerful magic users in The 'Verse, is fully capable of jumping between points and dimensions at will, though Paradise Island has defenses against this. Interestingly, her most notable use of teleportation may have been when she used it to help the heroes by teleporting Diana and herself into the tail end of Artemis' fight with the White Magician in Volume 2.
- X-Men:
- The X-Men tend to play with this. Their main teleporter Nightcrawler is heroic, but looks rather demonic and villainous. Others (Magik and Vanisher) are even at their best firmly in the anti-heroic camp. Pixie did not become a teleporter until after losing a part of her soul to Magik.
- Being the most unambiguously good teleporter, naturally Nightcrawler has much shorter range than the others (a normal maximum of about 2 miles, compared to Magik's near-infinite range that even extends to teleporting into alternate dimensions).
- Then there's Lila Cheney, another teleporter. However, her teleports are limited to interstellar distances, so she can't casually teleport around. She makes her home on a Dyson sphere.
Fan Works
- A common problem in Age of Strife. The Eldar can use the webway to travel across the galaxy and land anywhere they please on the planet. This makes it almost impossible to stop their raids.
- In BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant, Phantom serves Terumi (and by extension Salem's faction) and can teleport almost anywhere with very few limitations. This is in contrast to Rachel, who's on the side of good and whose teleportation is far more limited, with her only capable of teleporting to places she's been invited to and it being slower than Phantom's near-instantaneous abilities.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami, being a story that focuses mostly on villains, is full of these:
- Mercury herself gains this ability both through Keeper powers, and later with Dark Kingdom magic.
- Many of the Keepers' minions, such as dark mistresses, vampires and in Mercury's case, youmas, can teleport as well.
- The generals and youmas of the Dark Kingdom can teleport at will using Metallia's magic.
- The Ghost of Ochs: Myson can use his magic to teleport himself and his soldiers in and out of battle. The transportation isn't instantaneous, though, and he has to conjure a magic circle on whatever ground he's standing on for it to work. His partner-in-crime Kronya has to rely on his magic to travel long distances, and at one point she complains that it isn't stealthy enough for her to use to make a clean getaway.
- Half-Life: Full Life Consequences: Gordon Freeman teleported to John Freeman and hit him with crowbar.
- Hellsister Trilogy: Mordru uses his teleportational spells to move his pawns around.
The bolt of power which had freed the Fatal Five had also transported them to Zerox, the Sorcerors' World. Now Tharok, Mano, Emerald Empress, the Persuader, and the mighty Validus stood before their benefactor.
- Here There Be Monsters: When Dr. Sivana decides to make his escape, he teleports their children into his rocket ship; a process during which their bodies are temporarily transformed into a gaseous mass.
- Maybe the Last Archie Story: Before the Archie gang can rescue Sabrina from her kidnapper, Mad Doctor Doom turns on a device and teleports himself and Sabrina away in a soundless flash of blue light. Veronica compares it with Star Trek teleporting beams.
- The Mountain and the Wolf: The Wolf's ability to emerge anywhere he wants is the single biggest advantage he has over Westeros, to the point that he intentionally hides it from them (claiming it can turn itself invisible instead). It allows him to do his work unnoticed (like abducting Cersei and Qyburn, or killing Euron in the Iron Islands after taking him prisoner off Dragonstone.
- In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, the minion of the Bloodline King known as the Emissary is able to do this via his Bloodline.
- Princess Tales: At the end of "Battle of Royals", the villains who attack Princess Academy teleport away in a cloud of black smoke after Ariel delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle to them following their murder of Jermaine.
- At the climax of A Prize for Three Empires, the Supreme Intelligence teleports away when he is surrounded by the Earth's heroes.
- Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K: The Imperium of Man serves as the main antagonistic faction of the series and they have access to teleportation technology (albeit technology that is uncommon and limited to high-ranking Imperials only) which the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order completely lack. In the story itself, only the especially villainous Imperial characters ever seem to employ teleportation tech such as Tasleon, Tahr Whyler, and Commissar Shadrick.
Films — Animation
- Superheroine Voyd from Incredibles 2 has the very useful ability to open up teleporting portals anywhere. Unfortunately, she spends a lot of her screentime under Mind Manipulation, meaning we get to see a lot of her power only when she's in an antagonistic position.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Spot is just as dangerous as his comic book counterpart despite his initial incompetence and inexperience with his powers. By making a spot, he can portal himself and others anywhere at anytime, sometimes even taking a chunk of whatever had a spot. This makes him a tricky opponent to fight since he can portal a punch or kick away from him into his attacker. He can even portal himself across dimensions.
- Superman vs. the Elite: The titular villain team has enslaved an alien creature and force her to teleport them wherever they want. They use this constantly to troll people, go wherever they want, and out-maneuver Superman.
Films — Live-Action
- In Atom Man vs. Superman, teleporting coins can transport Luthor, his henchmen, or anyone else who touches them to other destinations.
- Avengers: Infinity War: Thanos acquires the Space Stone very early on, and it becomes the Infinity Stone he uses the most throughout the movie, often to teleport across the universe to greatly expedite his hunt for the rest of the Infinity Stones.
- Devil's Pass: Played for horror when the feral humanoid creatures attack in this manner and are viewed only fleetingly via night-vision camera.
- Harry Potter: Villains 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. Also, most of the series takes place at Hogwarts, where it's impossible to apparate, so the villains can only use it during scenes that take place outside the school grounds.
- Jumper:
- There's an organization of Knight Templars led by Samuel L. Jackson who dedicate great deals of money and effort to killing teleporters because they believe this trope applies. The only teleporters in the movie are robbers and murderers who can't take responsibility for their actions.
- Jumpers leave small tears in the fabric of reality whenever they teleport, and exploiting these tears allows the Templars their own form of this, from the Jumpers' perspective.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The crew of the Flying Dutchman can walk through walls and teleport, but apparently only aboard ships.
- X-Men (Film Series):
- X2: X-Men United: In the opening, Brainwashed and Crazy Nightcrawler teleports to get away, but later moves to the good guys' side.
- X-Men: First Class: Azazel is a henchman of the Hellfire Club, and he knows how to use his mutant power to deadly effect.
- X-Men: Apocalypse: One of Apocalypse's numerous mutant abilities allows him to generate a purple sphere and warp from place to place. Unlike Nightcrawler and Azazel, it's not dependent on how far he can actually see, as he teleports all over the planet.
Literature
- In The Bad Place, the main villain Candy Pollard has this ability, as does his good brother Frank. With Candy, it's more reliable and controlled, but Frank can't control where he goes and how he reassembles himself.
- Battle Ground (2020): Drakul is not only one of the strongest physical foes in the battle, he's also a magic user whose favorite tactic is the frequent use of a teleport spell no one recognizes which he uses to port himself all over the field and to send Chandler to an Uncertain Doom.
- A Certain Magical Index:
- In the Vs the World Arc, Thor uses this ability to have the world bring him to a spot where he will always have the advantage. Fortunately he can only do this to one person at a time.
- Kuroko is one of the heroes (apart from her occasional Psycho Lesbian tendencies) and can teleport rather well-coordinated and efficiently. Her entire combat style is in fact based on it. True to the trope, someone then shows up who can also teleport, except much better and the person is a villain to boot.
- One group of antagonists in The Chronicles 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 prove):
Jasra: It means nothing to be able to transport yourself anywhere, if you are a fool in all places.
- Earth's Scariest Monsters!: In "Holy Blessings," Satan (who had been masquerading as the human male Louis Cypher) teleports away in towering pillars of Hellfire after the angel Melody appears and scares him off following the evil demon trying to goad Jermaine into making a Deal with the Devil with him. Before leaving, Satan tells Isabelle, Jermaine, and Melody We Will Meet Again.
- Played with in the Harry Potter series. This trope is averted with the Apparation (teleportation) spell. Like most abilities in the wizarding world, it can be learned if someone is skilled enough to use it. In fact, learning how to teleport is akin to getting a driver's license in the real world. Not that villains would have any use for that, since the Hogwarts grounds prevent anyone from apparating in and out. Unlike the film version, when fights do happen in areas where teleportation is possible, it's one of the heroes who makes the most frequent use of teleportation, and when creatures are revealed able to break the wizard/witch rules of apparition they're still on the side of the heroes. Mobile Menace is still played straight all the same. It's just applied to other skills like sizeshifting or flight.
- In Alex Kosh's If I Was a Vampire, teleportation is among Konstantin's powers, although Konstantin is more an antagonist than a classical villain.
- In the Incarnations of Immortality series, Satan clearly has the power to transport himself at will anywhere within the mortal realm but this does not give him the ability to visit other Incarnations within their domain — each is supreme within his/her domain. Interestingly, this is eventually deconstructed by showing that while every other major Incarnation is provided with powerful toolkits including transportation support, Satan is using the exact same spells any mortal magician could — he's just had longer to practice them.
- The Demon King in The Legend of Sun Knight is given control of powerful dark magic, and among them is essentially unrestricted long-range teleportation. Demon King Roland first uses it to deliver Sun's corpse to the Holy Temple, while Demon King Grisia uses it mostly in his adventurer disguise, pretending to sleep in a warded tent while actually commuting to his castle.
- Magic Hour: Near the end of "Dragon Hoard," the evil knight Sir Carter uses his Cool Sword to teleport away after he's defeated by Dragonia and her parents. He escapes this way again near the end of "Knight Templar" when he's defeated by Jermaine.
- Messrs. Croupe and Vandemar from Neverwhere move according to Offscreen Teleportation rules, but played for horror rather than humor: they initially use it to infiltrate a mansion that should be impossible for outsiders to access, and regularly harrass the protagonists without warning. They can also, presumably by the same means, travel through time.
- Slayers: The primary villains throughout most of the series are the Mazoku, the Always Chaotic 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. 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 — one Mazoku even pulls the party inside. It's so typical that in Slayers: The Motion Picture, it's a telltale 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. Lina develops a defense against this by inventing the ragna blade spell, with which she slashes right through the universe to impale monsters hiding in subspace.
- In The Stand, Randall Flagg appears able to teleport, showing up in faraway places at just the right moment and escaping that nuclear blast at the end. However, most of the time Flagg will travel by car or simply by walking (hence the nickname "the walking dude"), probably because even Flagg doesn't understand how their own powers work.
- 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 the eponymous Dancing Flame's power used by Valle was also used by the deity creating the elves and powers their magic.
- 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 everything about Myrddraal.
Live-Action TV
- Charmed (1998): Demons usually either shimmer or use flames. Warlocks just disappear or "blink". Also, while villains have the most varieties of teleportation, it's the good kind of teleportation — orbing — that appears most often.
- Doctor Who: The Cult of Skaro Daleks use their ability to "emergency temporal shift" to evade the Doctor many times, much to his annoyance. This backfires when Caan shifts straight into the Time war.
- Kamen Rider:
- In general, villains possess the ability to teleport, but only so that they can exit stage left, with the ability almost never being useful for battle outside specific instances below. If a heroic Rider undergoes a Face–Heel Turn, they often spontaneously gain the ability to teleport for this purpose, and in rare cases a former antagonist actually gets to keep the ability if they turn face, allowing the heroes to exit stage right when they're up against a too-powerful opponent.
- 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.
- Legend of the Seeker: Darken Rahl teleports by passing from one of his fortresses to another through green fires. It may also explain his flash step.
- No Ordinary Family: One of the super villains 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.
- Power Rangers: Extremely common, particularly the early seasons (Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Turbo).
- 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 only that series) but villains make great use of teleportation, often with elaborate special effects that let you know who's coming before they materialize. Every villain, no matter how totally unrelated their other powers are, does it. Goldar shoots fireballs, and teleports. Finster sculpts monsters, and teleports. Astronema shoots lightning from her staff, and teleports. And so forth.
- A couple aversions: Due to an early episode featuring an important teleportation device, SPD lacks it — that episode 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.
- Meanwhile, Super Megaforce, Dino Charge, Ninja Steel, and Dino Fury have had all villains beaming down from their respective ships instead of just zapping around at will. They also get a uniform (that is, uniform within their series, though Dino Charge's and Ninja Steel's were quite similar) special effect for it, suggesting a more Star Trek-ish transporter being part of their ships' technology. With Dino Fury, it's a minor part of the mystery of the main villain (Void Knight and his minions teleport with the same effect as the heroes... whose mentor makes an offhanded comment about his armor that suggests, without quite saying, that it was stolen. Presumably, we're going to learn just why his tech so resembles that of the Rangers down the line.)
- Sanctuary (2007): John Druitt is not always a villain, but definitely not nicest person in a world. And he can teleport. So can his daughter, but her power came with being Brainwashed and Crazy. Druitt is the primary reason why all Sancturies have Teleport Interdiction shields set up that scatter the atoms of anyone attempting to do it. In his first appearance, Druitt pretends to be knocked out and is brought inside Helen's Sanctuary, where he deactivates the shield and teleports right into her office. Later, during the Cabal's attack on the Sanctuaries, their Super Soldiers (who can teleport) break in through the ceiling and trash everything in their way, including the shield generator and/or computer. After that, they can engage in this trope all they want.
- Super Hero Taisen Z: The villains are able to use teleportation magic. They are even able to make planets collide with this. It is due to this that the SpaceSherrifs decide to intervene.
- Supernatural: The demon villains, like Crowley, can teleport just about anywhere at will.
- Super Sentai: Villain teleportations started off with the villains simply fading away, but later seasons use effects similar to the Power Rangers examples listed above.
- Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger: Dezumozorlya has the power to teleport himself or others between dimensions. Since he possessed the body of a 12 year old girl, the teleportation is usually initiated by her giving the teleportee a kiss on the cheek.
- In Mahou Sentai Magiranger, the villains are the only ones with the power to teleport. In fact, it's the only way for them to leave the underworld they reside in. Most villains are reliant on Black Magicians, such as Wolzard or Meemy, to transport them to the surface world. This takes the form of a magical circle serving as a portal. Vancuria is able to freely teleport between worlds without magic, but can't take other beings with her. During the final arc, the Infershia Pantheon display the ability to teleport through magical aurora's.
- Both sides use teleportation in Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, but the villains seem to use a more powerful variant, since they are able to transport entire Humongous Mecha, while the heroes can only teleport their weapons to the battlefield.
- The main villain Betsutengai in Thunderbolt Fantasy uses this ability in tandem with his sword-fighting skills. The ability may be a result of dark magic, his sword mastery, or a combination of both.
- Ultra Series: While many foes and heroes alike can teleport, one of the most famous examples comes from the original's Final Boss, Zetton, who uses it to great effect to psych out Ultraman in their climactic fight. When he uses it, it spooks Ultraman enough to make him abandon his fighting stance, placing Zetton in an advantageous position where he can block Ultraman’s Ultra Slash with his Zetton Barrier, then grapple with him until he’s sufficiently weakened to be unable to defend against the Zetton Final Beam.
Professional Wrestling
- "Teleporting" is a fairly rare trope, usually used by baby faces like the zombie phase of The Undertaker, the crow version of Sting or Broken Matt Hardy as a means of intimidating opponents during promos or just making promos more interesting. Not so with Catrina, who functions as nuisance to the tecnicos of Lucha Underground and can teleport out of holds applied during matches, including one by Pentagón Jr. that until then had reliably broke arms!
Tabletop Games
- Exalted:
- There are quite a few ways to move around quickly, 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 creepy 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.
- Abyssals also have Flickering Wisp Technique, allowing them to defend against physical attacks by briefly ceasing to exist, before reappearing somewhere near their previous location, accompanied by shadows. Its range is rather limited, however. They also have Stepping Outside Existence, which is notable in that it is a teleportation Charm that is a mirror to a Solar jumping Charm, can only be activated during night and takes the Abyssal through the nightmares of dying Eldritch Abominations.
- Warhammer 40,000: Up until 6th edition, all demonic forces had to arrive at the battlefield via teleportation — which was not exactly good for them. It is also true for Space Marine Terminators and Chaos Obliterators and Horrors from the Dawn of War RTS. Both factions were shown to perform genocide on the planets scale, so they both probably count.
Video Games
- Among Us: The ventilation network fits this from a gameplay perspective, because only Impostors can traverse it and using it is much, much faster than normal walking. (This rule was broken in a 2021 update that added Engineers, who can also use the vents in a more limited way.) Since an Impostor caught "venting" can be immediately denounced in an Emergency Meeting, a typical strategy is to use one immediately after killing a Crewmate (since the vents tend to be placed near task stations).
- Armed With Wings: Vandheer Lorde and Network can both teleport, so it's safe to assume that if one can teleport and isn't a Blackmist avatar, they're probably a bad guy instead. Vandheer's case is especially notable in Culmination... mostly because you'll probably be spamming it to hell and back when you get the chance to be the boss fight.
- Baldur's Gate II: Plot-important characters 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.
- Battle for Wesnoth: In Eastern Invasion, the heroes have Silver Mage's gameplay-only teleportation ability at best, while the Big Bad Mal Ravanal's magic allows him to teleport in a safe place at will and can use it when at death's door to escape. Dacyn has the group make a detour to recover the Anti-Magic stone belonging to a Dragon so that he can counter his trick.
- BlazBlue:
- 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 Hazama/Terumi 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).
- 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.
- Castlevania:
- Dracula just loves the warp tactic, combining it with fireballs.
- Alucard gets this attack in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Its usefulness is brought into question as the teleportation range is small, limited, can't go through walls, and the fireballs do very little damage, but it's just so damned cool to get to use it. Alternatively, it can be used to quickly bypass annoying enemies with its Mercy Invincibility by simply pressing Down to cancel the fireball attack at the end and quickly recovering from the move.
- Soma Cruz is able to use Dracula's old teleportation attack in Dawn of Sorrow's Julius Mode, accompanied by a legendary evil laugh.
- 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.
- The Darkness: Later enemies in The Darkness II have purple and smoky teleport.
- Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Villains can phase in and out of existence in cutscenes, being immune to weapons while transitioning but still managing to taunt the heroes. Heroes can only use teleportation as Escape Rope.
- Diablo II: Boss monsters with the random Teleportation modifier also heal on each teleport, and it is completely random and independent of their AI or animations. In other words, either you deal enough damage to kill them outright or you will never kill them. The teleporting Council doomed many underpowered variant builds until Blizzard removed the heal in the expansion pack patch.
- Dishonored: Daud does this when he assassinates Jessamine in the prologue.
- Enigma of Fear: None of the protagonists have any teleportation abilities, but several major bosses do:
- Goliath can burrow through the ground and appear suddenly anywhere an Eye is turned on, effectively teleporting around the Cave.
- Ooze skeletons can suddenly appear anywhere there is ooze, meaning that the Ooze Tyrant can appear at random anywhere in the Spiral Castle that has a big pool of ooze.
- Final Fantasy:
- In Final Fantasy XIV, teleportation without use of an external anchor such as an aetheryte is explicitly impossible for ordinary beings. Various powerful antagonists, most notably the Ascians, naturally show themselves to be unbound by this limitation.
- In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Exdeath has an attack that lets him teleport around the arena. It's very useful because normally he moves at roughly the speed of the tree that he is.
- 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 row 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!
- Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia retains this, though not as a combat ability. The villains will stroll into and out of the scene at their leisure. Usually this is via Torsion, which the good guys also have the ability to create (but generally don't except in emergencies). However, they appear and vanish with an unexplained flash of light nearly as often.
- 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.)
- Fire Emblem:
- Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: Ephidel and some of the other morphs can pull this. This is also one of the uncommon games in the series where the player also has access to Warp and can teleport their army around the map.
- Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn goes so far as to specifically give plot-relevant villains Warp and Rewarp staves in order to facilitate the usual Villain: Exit, Stage Left behavior that prevents the player from permakilling them several chapters early. The most notorious users of these items are Lekain and Izuka. The former is only taken down in the actual endgame, and the latter also spams summoned minions to get in the player army's way. The game also has a plot-only item referred to as Warp Powder, which allows non-mages to pull the same trick. The only person we ever see using it is the Black Knight.
- Fire Emblem: Awakening: The most visible user of the Warp spell is Excellus, who teleports into one map immediately after the boss's death to taunt the heroes. He likewise teleports out before poor Say'ri can stab him to death.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The Death Knight and the Flame Emperor repeatedly disappear after being defeated, in true Recurring Boss fashion. Both of them also teleport into maps, even occasionally during sequences when the player can attack them immediately. Hubert also has a tendency to do this in non-Crimson Flower routes, and it happens a lot, which is especially frustrating because there isn't even the attempt to suggest why he can't do this when he's actually playable. There's a reason why Bismix's video parodying this trope "I must retreat." features Hubert on the thumbnail...
- Five Nights at Freddy's 1: Bonnie and Freddy can teleport, while Chica only moves to adjacent rooms. This is particularly noticeable with a cheat code enabled that allows the player to track the animatronics' locations.
- Friday the 13th: Jason Voorhees exhibits this in three video games.
- In the NES game, Jason can suddenly appear before you in the overworld, and disappear as quickly.
- In Friday the 13th: The Game, as Jason has seven targets, all of whom are faster than him on foot, he can teleport across the map to keep up.
- In Mortal Kombat X, Jason weaponizes this trope in his "Relentless" variation, disappearing in a foggy mist and reappearing behind his opponent.
- Golden Sun: The major antagonist Alex can Warp, which is a strange type of Psynergy that no other character can use, and which allows Alex to teleport.
- Half-Life 2: Inverted in the case of the Combine. Despite being a powerful alien empire which conquered the Earth in a matter of hours, their grasp of teleportation is far less comprehensive than what humans have managed to uncover. They've mastered inter-dimensional teleportation in their conquest of other races across multiple universes but never cracked the code on teleporting within the same dimension, something that Aperture Science figured out well before the Combine invaded Earth, and which the Resistance made major strides in with the help of the finest remaining minds from Black Mesa. Their teleportation method is also noted to have a high rise time, which is to say their teleporters take an extremely long time to spool up.
- Halo:
- Halo 4: Promethean Knights can teleport, usually if it is caught off guard or losing a battle, much to the frustration of many players. This ability is removed from the Knights in Halo 5: Guardians, being used by Promethean Soldiers instead, this time leaving a visible trail that allows players to track them. All Promethean constructs as well as the Warden Eternal can use slipspace portals to get to locations quickly, but generally don't use them in combat.
- The Banished use portals to move across the Ark quickly and easily in Halo Wars 2. The UNSC forces under command of the Spirit of Fire attack and destroy the control nodes the Banished have set up to prevent them from accessing and controlling the portals as easily.
Isabel: They're using the Ark's portals!
Alice-130: Portals. Why is it always portals?
- Hollow Knight: Multiple bosses can teleport, most notably the Soul Master, Troupe Master Grimm and Nightmare King Grimm, the Hollow Knight (to an extent), and The Radiance.
- Homeworld: The NAGGAROK from Homeworld: Cataclysm can either move incredibly fast or hyperspace jump in a second, appear anywhere on the map, blast your units and disappear again.
- Infinity Nikki: Itzaland introduces us to the Docilist High Priestess Medael who is able to warp around using dark purple magic and evades Nikki's teammate Domibaba with almost disdainful ease.
- Kingdom Hearts:
- Teleporting yourself between worlds is reserved for villains or morally-ambiguous types, as it involves travelling the Corridors of Darkness. The good guys have to use Gummi Ships or the Lanes Between, and even the latter can be dangerous without special armour. Good-aligned people can travel the Corridors if they have protection or unique circumstances, but not summon them: Riku retains most of his dark powers after his Heel–Face Turn, but significantly loses this one. Notably, Aqua has been trapped within the Realm of Darkness for 13 years and ends up corrupted by it.
- Maleficent and her cohort can do this in the first game, and one clue Riku went bad is that he learned the same type of evil teleport. Every member of Organization XIII can do it (unless you're playing as one), as well as Young Xehanort and the Anti Black Coat Nightmare, and they use it tactically in battle too; they zip around the map most annoyingly.
- It should be noted that stepping into darkness is only necessary for travel between worlds. Good characters can still make use of Teleport Spam in battle with no particular consequences. Aqua is particularly good at this.
- This is justified to some extent, in that using darkness for this puts your heart at serious risk, and most antagonists don't have a heart to endanger. Namine is incredibly good and kind, and she uses this same power to rescue everyone at the end of II since she is a Nobody who can use it safely.
- King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human: Manannan can teleport into whatever room you are in, and will KILL you if you have any forbidden items that could possibly be used against him. As such, you cannot escape him, cannot outrun him, cannot survive him if he attacks.
- Kirby: There are good teleporters, but none use it as much as the bad guys in combat. Nightmare, Dark Mind and Daroach use Teleport Spam most prominently.
- The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: The Apes found in the Well of Souls can perform short-range teleports while battling Spyro, adding to the confusion of large melee fights as some of their members become difficult to keep track of.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Wizzrobes are a type of wizard-like enemy distinguished by their ability to randomly teleport around the area they are found in, stopping only to fire off a magical attack before vanishing again.
- 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.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Yuga does this in the Final Battle, in addition to eventually using his wall-merging technique. The functionality of any teleporting Link gets, meanwhile, is limited to the Warp Whistle and the Escape Rope.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Some enemies have the ability to teleport, and unlike Link's own teleporting aren't limited to reappearing at a number of set destinations but can choose to move themselves to wherever they wish in mid-combat.
- The Yiga Clan have this as one of their signature abilities. They tend to attack from nowhere by teleporting in to ambush Link while he's traveling, teleport back out of danger when their health is depleted, and in battle constantly teleport from one position to another. In particular, Yiga archers tend to teleport between each shot, and all varieties use this ability to keep up with Link if he tries to flee.
- Lynels can teleport at will, although the majority of the time they use this ability to return to their arenas if they're somehow removed from them.
- Lunar: The Silver Star: Xenobia and the Magic Emperor can teleport in or out of the scene when the plot requires it. It seems fairer than most examples since the player's party also gets a form of teleportation.
- Mass Effect: Andromeda: Kett Ascendants have the ability to 'port themselves around, though usually they only move a few feet. One, the Cardinal, uses it in a cutscene just to get across a room.
- Overwatch:
- Reaper's shadow step has him teleporting with a shadowy animation. His "nevermore" skin has him sinking into the ground to teleport.
- Sombra can also teleport, via the use of thrown beacons. This is mostly used (in-game and in-story) to nope out of a bad situation or to get the drop on an unsuspecting victim.
- Reaper's shadow step
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: The sand monsters teleport into the areas where you fight them and also if you get too far away from them. Luckily, they don't actually use Teleport Spam as a form of attack.
- Ravensword: Shadowlands: When you fight Kavanaugh, he will teleport all over the place, even coupling this with being invisible most of the time.
- Resident Evil 4: You enter an apparently empty barn, then Mendez "teleports in" behind Leon.
- Shovel Knight: Plague Knight and Specter Knight are both capable of this — Plague Knight through alchemy, Specter Knight because he's a lich.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Chaos Control initially played this straight, but then it became downplayed at best. Shadow the Hedgehog is introduced in Sonic Adventure 2 performing Chaos Control to outmaneuver Sonic. However, Sonic later learns how to use this power himself, and when Shadow makes a Heel–Face Turn, they team up to use Chaos Control to save the world. Since then, Shadow becomes an Anti-Hero at worst and is the most prominent user of Chaos Control, though certain villains like Black Doom demonstrate the same power.
- Played straight with Infinite in Sonic Forces, who pulls off a similar trick to Shadow with the Phantom Ruby.
- Spider-Man (Zen Studios): Mysterio teleports around the playfield during his mission.
- Suikoden: While Viki is 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.
- Tales Series:
- Tales of Symphonia: All of the Seraphim demonstrate this ability at one point or another. Oddly, not all of them use it in battle.
- Tales of Vesperia: Alexei inexplicably teleports away after his confrontation with Brave Vesperia in Zaphias, despite nobody else in the game ever showing this kind of ability.
- Wild ARMs 1: The Quarter Knights can each teleport in their own individual fashion. Zeikfried teleports through the floor, Alhazad becomes either a warp or ball of light, depending on the version, Lady Harken leaps and lands in order to teleport, Berserk appears and disappears from head to toe, Boomerang and Luceid either form from shadows or fade in and out.
- Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter: Dalles has a habit of suddenly appearing to do his evil work and then promptly disappearing with an Evil Laugh.
- Zone of the Enders: For most of the two games, Anubis was the only orbital frame capable of using metatron to jump large distances of space. Once you get it, the fights get... interesting.
Visual Novels
- Umineko: When They Cry: Various witches and other supernatural beings can teleport (dissolving into a cloud 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.
Webcomics
- Arai-san Mansion: Anomalous Giant Otters have a copy of the elevator panel that lets them phase out from floors without using the actual elevator.
- Archipelago: Captain Snow, who steals people's powers, has access to teleportation, though he doesn't use it much.
Snow: I was stuck in a well. All that drowning must have addled my brains, it took me forever to remember: Doh! Of course! I can teleport!
- In The Gamer, only the (relatively) villainous Black Summoner has shown teleporting abilities so far. The main character's reaction on seeing it is one of comically exaggerated jealousy.
- Homestuck:
- After Becquerel's prototyping, Jack Noir makes good use of the powers of a First Guardian to start a mass-murder spree across the universe. Doc Scratch can also teleport, which is initially just treated as a Mundane Utility until Spades Slick presses his buttons. Then he beats the ever-loving shit out of him and teleports him away so he can end the universe like he was supposed to.
- Snowman, Sawbuck and Matchsticks of the Felt all have this to a degree. Snowman can teleport anywhere she wants but has no time powers unlike her compatriots, Matchsticks can use fires as portals to travel through time, and Sawbuck uncontrollably transports to a random point in time when injured.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Vaarsuvius, the titular Order's resident wizard, has Conjuration as one of their barred schools, thus denying the party the ability to teleport.note The villains have no such limitation, naturally. And when Vaarsuvius made a Deal with the Devil(s) to temporarily gain immense magical power, V was able to not only teleport, but do so on a truly Epic scale.
- In particular, the imp Qarr can teleport at will (even to and from other dimensions) and uses it more than any other character, both in combat and to show up and torment Vaarsuvius verbally.
- In a more localised example, after the destruction of Girard's Gate, the Order attempts to escape from Tarquin's forces on the back of an Allosaurus that Belkar has tamed. Unfortunately, with the psion Laurin on Tarquin's side, he is always able to cut the Order off at the pass, by virtue of the fact that it's effectively impossible to outrun someone who can teleport.
- Vaarsuvius, the titular Order's resident wizard, has Conjuration as one of their barred schools, thus denying the party the ability to teleport.note The villains have no such limitation, naturally. And when Vaarsuvius made a Deal with the Devil(s) to temporarily gain immense magical power, V was able to not only teleport, but do so on a truly Epic scale
- Power of Ether: The first actual antagonist of the comic can teleport, though he apparently can't spam it.
Alfie: Hi there. I'm Alfie, and I can teleport myself and my buddy here short distances.
- Unsounded:
- Bastion can travel great distances in a matter of seconds by offsetting, something his Black Tongue colleges mumble is impossible before he does so in front of them.
- Murkoph, a cannibalistic rapist and serial killer, can blip from place to place using khert lines like Bastion.
- 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.
Web Originals
- The Slender Man Mythos: The Slender Man seems to have this ability, what with all his snatching yo people up and Offscreen Teleportation.
Web Videos
- No Through Road: The masked killer is able to appear and disappear on the No Through Road by bending time and space.
Western Animation
- Breach from Generator Rex can create red portals that can transport anything to anywhere. An episode reveals she literally transported an entire city to her pocket dimension and regularly teleports E.V.O.s there so they can fight and entertain her.
- In The Legend of Zelda (1989), Ganon teleports everywhere. One scene has 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.
- Miraculous Ladybug: has the Horse Miraculous which is initially on the side of the good guys and limited to one teleport portal per fight (as the heroes are all teens not mature enough to use them repeatedly) however in season 5 the villains get ahold of it and lead villain Monarch who's an adult and any of his villains he grants the power to are able to use it as much as they want making it this trouble. It's averted in season 6 where the heroes get it back and now are mature enough to also use their powers more than once allowing horse hero Pegasus to teleport as freely as the villains could the previous season.
- Teen Titans (2003):
- The 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.
Robin: [as the secret base crumbles around them] Raven, get us out of here.
- This is presumably because on the off-chance something happens to Raven, they don't want to have no way to get around independently.
- Third season Big Bad Brother Blood also has the power to teleport, as do HIVE member Kyd Wykkyd, Red X and Slade after becoming Trigon's minion.
- The 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.
- Skywarp, a Decepticon Mook from The Transformers, can teleport. He does it rarely, however, and doesn't see to accomplish anything useful with it. Because a surprise push down some stairs is hilarious.
- 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.
- Wakfu:
- Vampyro 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 Always Chaotic Evil.
- Season 2 Big Bad Qilby freely abuses his teleportation powers to give the heroes a hard time.