Mercedes Black

Mercury Black is an original character for the webseries RWBY, and the little sister of Mercury Black. She is specific to my portrayal(s) of Mercury, but if other Mercuries want to write with her for whatever reason then, hey, I’m all for it! I won't force her onto other writers.

More in-depth info below.

Physical

Mercedes stands at 5’6” and is fairly thin with fair skin. A decent sized handful of scars coat her body, though the majority of them have faded with time and are easy to miss. While she’s sure they must have some great stories behind them, she just can’t seem to recall where she got most of them.

Mercedes is half-Mistrali on her mom’s side, though she definitely looks more like her father than her mother - they’ve got the same dark grey eyes. Her eyes are large and round, but incredibly intense in their gaze, and she often accidentally comes off as unnerving. When using her semblance, her pupils glow bright blue, and a blue ring highlights her irises.

Unfortunately, Mercedes sports a bit of a resting bitch face, which completely betrays her personality. In conversation, she’s all smiles and extremely expressive, but when quiet, her neutral expression almost always looks angry or disappointed.

Her hair is jet-black and runs all the way down to her waist, usually tied into two low pigtails. Her bangs are styled into a hime cut, with the longer strands dyed a bright blue.

Although her mother is a faunus, the traits did not pass onto her, and she’s a human like her father.

She has poor sight and hearing. She has glasses, but prefers to wear contacts due to glasses tending to slip during combat. Mercedes wears hearing aids in both ears. Her ears are pierced and she typically sports simple earrings.

Mercedes dresses casually and comfortably, usually nothing fancier than a t-shirt and denim shorts, unless she has special plans. She does enjoy dressing up, but not that much.

I use Osage-chan as her faceclaim for icons. Her IRL faceclaim is Rom.

Personality

Mercedes is a sweet girl, the first on the scene to lend a hand if someone seems like they need it. She is also extremely apologetic, and forgets things often -- but is more than willing to make up for her shortcomings.

Mercedes has a certain knack for reading people, though isn’t always sure how to actually act on what she sees.

She’s able to take insults in stride, and doesn’t let the opinions of others get to her. However, she does not take well to other people being victimized or insulted, and will often jump to someone’s defense even if they don’t need it, or don’t want it. On her first day at Shade Academy, she started a fight with her own teammate and combat partner over her poor attitude.

Mercedes doesn’t often speak her mind unless she’s coming to someone else’s defense, like the above. Otherwise, she mostly keeps to herself, as she’s a little shy.

Mercedes is generally trusting, but sometimes feels she cannot trust certain people due to her own memory issues. It’s not always easy for her to tell if someone is genuinely reminding her of something she said or did, or if she’s being manipulated into thinking she did because of her poor memory.

Skills & Abilities

In-depth description of skills & abilities goes here.

Semblance

SEMBLANCE NAME: Semblance description.

Weaponry

WEAPON NAME:Weapon description.

Other Strengths

Other shit they're good at.

Non-Combat Skills

Things they're good at that aren't combat-related.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses, drawbacks, limitations.

History

Background

Mercedes had a heavily abusive upbringing under the care of her father, Marcus Black, renowned assassin. But eventually, she was rescued by her mother, and taken to Argus, and following the attack on Haven, moved again to Vacuo. She is currently enrolled in her first year at Shade Academy.

History

The Black family is a long line of assassins - men referred to in the shadows simply as “Mr. Black”. Mercedes’ birth was a complete accident; she was completely unplanned. But a blessing is a blessing - an heir and a spare, as they say. She would be trained alongside her elder brother Mercury, in case something were to happen to him, or if he proved to not be as strong as Marcus needed him to be. Her father most often worked out of Mistral, so acquiring the language was a must. Her mother, Maribelle, raised her with the language.

She was born with poor hearing that would only deteriorate as she got older, thanks to her frequent close proximity to her father’s loud gunshots. To put it simply, Mercury and Mercedes did not have a happy childhood. The only thing either of them really had was each other. It didn’t take long for the family to realize Mercedes was very hard of hearing - Mercury and Maribelle took it upon themselves to learn sign language for her. Marcus did not.

Maribelle disappeared when they were both very young. Mercedes has no memories of her childhood at all, but she was hardly older than a toddler when her mother first disappeared. Now without a mother, Mercury took it upon himself to take care of Mercedes and protect her to the absolute best of his abilities. He’d do her hair, and try to provide at least a little comfort in the hellish environment they were being raised in.

In truth, Marcus packed up the house one day while she was out on a Huntress job, and left with both children in tow. Maribelle returned to a completely empty home, and had no idea where her children were for several years.

About half a decade later, when Mercedes was around eight or nine, Marcus started bringing Mercury along on his own jobs to give him some hands-on experience, leaving her frequently alone in the small cottage the family shared. There was one evening when Marcus was out on a job alone, and he finished up quicker than anyone anticipated. Mercury swears up and down that he saw his mother that evening, but Marcus would always chalk it up to him hallucinating from painkillers, having been on a heavy dose of morphine after the forced amputation of both of his legs. Mercedes was sound asleep at the time, and has no memory of the incident. In the weeks that followed, once Mercury had finally recovered, Marcus resumed bringing him on jobs. After a particularly long stint, they returned to an empty house -- Mercedes was missing, with her only trace being a note left behind in Marcus’s bedroom saying “I’m coming back for my son, too”. Maribelle had taken Mercedes and fled to a remote village in Anima not too far from Argus, where they’d stay for the next four years or so.

When Mercedes was old enough to attend combat school, she applied to Sanctum Academy, and easily got in. Things progressed smoothly, with Mercedes blissfully unaware of her mother’s growing paranoia surrounding Marcus. Eventually, during certain conversations with her mother, several worrying memory issues would come to the surface. Maribelle took her to psychiatrists and doctors, and soon figured out Mercedes had a form of dissociative amnesia, and couldn’t remember much of her childhood with Marcus. Maribelle had her start going to a therapist, but trying to recall just how awful the treatment she underwent with Marcus was extremely distressing for Mercedes, so Maribelle pulled her out after a few months. Mercedes’ memory issues spilled into her forgetting smaller things in her day-to-day, but it was never something she concerned herself with. It didn’t affect her studies too much, so she wasn’t worried. She retained some of the memory exercises she learned from her therapist, and utilized them frequently.

Eventually, the 40th Vytal Tournament would be held, and broadcast on every TV in Remnant. Mercedes was ecstatic to watch students from the schools she’d been dreaming of going to compete, and she and Maribelle frequently watched the battles together. Sanctum Academy also had the students study the fights. She took a strong interest in one of the teams from Haven, seeing as she planned on going there eventually, but also because one of the fighters on the team, Mercury, shared her same last name! And their names were kinda similar. Maribelle assured her there was no relation, but Mercedes still thought it was kinda cool. Unfortunately, the good thing came to an end with the attack on Beacon, and Maribelle’s paranoia suddenly became clear to Mercedes. However, since Mercedes was nearing completion of her combat training, and Maribelle was almost finished studying to be a counselor, they stayed where they lived for a while.

That is, until Haven was the next to be attacked. Following the attack on Haven Academy, Maribelle and her daughter Mercedes packed up and took a bullet train all the way to Vacuo, moving to a modest house close to Shade Academy. Mercedes would finish her combat training at Oscuro, with plans to attend Shade Academy that fall. In the meantime, Maribelle took up a job as a counselor at Shade, as well as a substitute professor, filling in as needed. She joined around the tail end of everything happening with the Crown, aiding in the final fight against them. Mercedes did not participate, Oscuro seemed to not be on the Crown’s radar at the time.

That combined with what happened at Beacon and Haven left a really bad taste in Maribelle’s mouth, and she got a little paranoid about sending her daughter to Shade. It took some convincing, but she managed to talk Mercedes into taking a gap year, so the both of them could get adjusted to the area before then. Mercedes finished her schooling at Oscuro, and spent her gap year working at a grocery store in the city. She continued her training on her own time, on days off and after work.

The following fall, Mercedes enrolled at Shade and was sorted into Team PLNM [Platinum], as the M, alongside teammates Porsche Dorée, Lincoln Nerola, and Nash Azurine. On their first day, Mercedes got into a physical altercation with Porsche following an argument. Mercedes nearly knocked her out, and the pair got into some trouble. Oops.

A few months into the school year, Mercedes adopted a stray cat and named him Miki. He’s partially deaf (like her!) and is missing an eye. He lives in the PLNM dorm, and the one thing the team can all agree on is that he is the best boy ever.

Current

What they might get up to in the future.

Relationships

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How they feel about XYZ character.

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How they feel about XYZ character.

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How they feel about XYZ character.

Verse List

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