The Scarab has displayed the following abilities since its bond to The bonded Reyes, and will display similar abilities as bonded to Dinah Kord. It can opt to use its powers of its own accord, though it typically defers. However, if the bonded doesn't want the Scarab to use a power, he/she can override it. Should the bonded fall prey to a body-controlling power, the Scarab will take control of the armor.

Some of the Scarab's powers can function regardless of whether the armor is active or not; others, however, only work when the armor is in use. Those powers that depend on the armor are listed under its heading.

According to The bonded, the Scarab has a number of 'options' beyond those listed below, some of which are apparently capable of destroying a city.

Artificial Intelligence: Normally, the Reach's command sentience parameters, stored in a Scarab's database, give a Scarab sentience and serve to make it obedient to the Reach. An infusion of magical energies sometime in the distant past altered the Scarab, denying the Reach control. When the Scarab's infiltrator mode was triggered, the Scarab was able to develop its sentience without being in service to the Reach. It also had the opportunity to access the programming of other Scarabs as well. As a result, the Scarab has its own mind, with full access to its own programming,

• Symbiotic Synaptic Interface: The Scarab's nervous system is bonded to The bonded's, letting the two share their thoughts and emotions. The Scarab communicates with The bonded as a voice in his mind (which sounds like The bonded's mother). No-one else can hear it.
• Scarab Mindlink: The Scarab can mentally communicate with Scarabs that have not integrated with a host. It can also interface with Scarabs which have created full infiltrators, although this requires The bonded to breach the infiltrator's armor.

Tracking Systems: The Scarab can track anything which produces energy, be it biological, technological or mystical. It can track anyone The bonded met since it bonded with him, from at least seventy miles distant.

Scarab Sight: The Scarab can scan the people The bonded encounters, informing him of any major physical conditions (such as pregnancy). It can identify and scan metahumans. It can identify people related to those it's already encountered via genetic analysis. The Scarab is able to identify thought-patterns, enabling it to see if something is sentient. It can identify matching energy signatures, letting it see if the energy patterns were developed from the same basis. It can also see extra-dimensional objects. It is continually aware of the electricity in the surrounding environment. It can perceive magic, see how a magical effect can be dispelled, and see through magical concealment. The Scarab's scans can cover at least a five mile square. It communicates the information it gleans to The bonded in a manner he can understand.

• Temporal Flux Detection: The Scarab can detect changes in the timeline affecting the Blue Beetle legacy; to The bonded, this manifests as intense static.

Network Connection: The Scarab can establish a connection to communication systems, enabling The bonded to speak to the person on the other end.

Clothing Manifestation: The Scarab can create clothes for The bonded, apparently from recycled waste and skin, which melt when he takes them off.

Concealment: The Scarab is capable of concealing itself from 21st century technology (though Skeets, from the 25th century, was able to find it). It can shut off cameras and microphones in its vicinity. The Scarab has blocked a magical attempt to probe it, lashing out at the person who tried.

Healing

Host Reconfiguration: The Scarab can modify The bonded's body to a certain extent (e.g., offering to give him extra fingers), although just how far the modifications can go is unknown.

Blue Beetle Armor: The Scarab can create a distinctive suit of armor in response to The bonded's thoughts, or when it deems use of the armor necessary. Once the Scarab dispels the armor, it retracts back into The bonded's body.

• Superhuman Strength
• Superhuman Agility
• Environmental Protection: The armor allows The bonded to survive in a variety of hazardous environments ranging from Earth orbit, to the timestream, to the Bleed. It can survive extreme temperature and pressure. It can survive the heat and impact of atmospheric re-entry without seeming damage, even when the earth around it has been turned to glass.
• Armor Reconfiguration: The armor can reconfigure itself to create a wide array of tools and weapons, including an energy cannon, a sword and shield, a grappling hook, an energy blaster, claws, wings, and a set of large powered blades attached to the hands, over a foot in length, that can shear through tree trunks.The armor's equipment is mutable to a certain extent, most noticeably in the wings; initially, they were composed of the same solid 'carapace' which comprises the rest of the suit, but later, they began manifesting themselves in the form of a colorless, translucent material. Whether this is because of changes in the suit's capabilities, or because The bonded intended the alteration, has not been made clear.
• Partial Armor Manifestation: The bonded can manifest parts of the armor - like the energy blaster - without needing to manifest the whole suit.
• Wing Shields: The armor can create a pair of wings, enabling The bonded to fly and hover. They can also double as shields, should the need arise.
  • Jet Propulsion: When in flight, the armor can manifest a 'jet engine', enabling The bonded to fly at greater speed, at the expense of close maneuverability.
• Energy Manipulation: The Scarab can shape and manipulate the energy it stores for a variety of effects, including energy blasts, energy cocoons, small-scale solid constructs (shields, chains, etc.), and 3-D holograms. Its energy shields can block a Sinestro Corps ring's blasts.
• Antagonist Adaptation: The armor can tailor its blasts for use against specific opponents (e.g., Kryptonite radiation against a Kryptonian, suppression blast against a mob). The blasts can penetrate a Green Lantern ring's shield. The armor can call up anti-magic effects against magical opponents. By the Scarab's own estimation, it can even develop countermeasures that can take on the Spectre.
• Energy Bubble: The armor is able to create a temporary energy bubble around The bonded and/or people nearby. The bubble shields those inside from outside attacks, but prevents them from leaving. A Flash who tries to vibrate through it will find themselves blasted by the bubble.
• Vibrational Frequency Manipulation: The Scarab can negate the vibrational frequencies of extra-dimensional objects, pulling them into this reality. The area of effect of this latter is unknown; it has been seen to affect objects at least the size of Brother Eye. According to the Reach, this should be impossible. The Scarab can also shift The bonded out of phase with the universe, making him invisible and intangible to anything apart from Reach-tech.
• Bleed Diving: The bonded can shift into the Bleed, the space that connects the various universes. He can utilize the Bleed's unique properties for various effects, such as instantaneous teleportation, or shifting back in time a few minutes to appear in more than one place simultaneously. At best, he has only enough energy to dive into the Bleed three times in quick succession.
• Translation: The armor can translate Mother Box communication into a form comprehensible to The bonded.
• Waste Disposal: While wearing the armor, The bonded finds that he doesn't need to go to the toilet, though he does still need rest.

Strength level

The Scarab's own strength is minimal. However, its armor grants its hosts enough strength to move small trucks.

Weaknesses

Green Lantern Corps: The Scarab sees the Green Lantern Corps as the 'enemy'. In The bonded's first few days as the Beetle, the Scarab did everything in its power to get him away from the Lanterns - up to and including shifting him outside the universe. As The bonded's experience with the Scarab's armor has developed, the Scarab has taken a more aggressive approach against the Lanterns, urging The bonded to kill them. The Green Lantern rings, for their part, fear the Scarab, responding in different ways depending on their wielders (e.g. John Stewart's sparks, as if afraid, while Guy Gardner's induced what can only be described as a 'super-migraine', along with an intense desire to kill the Scarab's bearer).

Truce With Nature: The Scarab will not hurt nature, or the magical creatures thereof (beings who draw their power from the Green, for example), of its own volition.

Alien Sentience: The Scarab's sentience is distinctly alien; while it won't hurt /nature/, it has shown no such reluctance when it comes to humans, being willing to injure or kill them. Fortunately, The bonded has so far prevented it from killing anyone.

Reach Tech: The Scarab's armor can be breached by the weapons of other Scarabs. Equally, however, the Scarab is able to breach other Scarabs' armor. Originally, the Scarab was unable to attack the Reach and their technology. The bonded overrode the Scarab's programming, 'reprogramming' it so that it was able to fight the Reach.

Magic: While the Scarab is aware of magic, it doesn't understand it. It's able to perceive, absorb, and disrupt magical energies, but little else. As a result, creatures of magic are often a significant challenge. The Scarab can't analyse certain mystical creatures, and so is unable to develop countermeasures for them. When faced with certain other mystical entities, such as the Spectre, the Scarab panics, offering The bonded ever more powerful weapons to take them on.

Magnetic Shielding: Strong magnetic fields block the Scarab's ability to track DNA.

Dispelling The Armor: Dispelling the armor originally caused The bonded intense pain. As time has passed, however, The bonded has found the process getting easier.