Disclaimer: I do not, nor do I claim to, own RWBY or any other media that may be referenced. All rights go to their respective owners. The only thing I lay any claim to are my OCs (which are still yet to make a major appearance).

"Daddy? Can you tell me about Mummy?" a young Mercury asks. He's three, nearly four, and he's never heard much about his mother, he just knows that he had one... once upon a time.

His father scoffs. "What's there to say? She was a client. In exchange for me taking her away from her past, she would give me the only thing she had to give. A child. That landed me with you, and she died in the process. You don't need to know anything else about her."

"What did she look like?" Mercury asks, feeling brave for once.

Marcus smacks the little boy over the head before taking a swig of his whiskey. "Don't ask questions, boy! I told you, you don't need to know nothing about her!"

"Sorry, Daddy!" Mercury squeaks, rubbing his sore head as he scampers away to his room.

"Hmph, a drunk. Always did hate drunks after dear old Dad. Pieces of filth."

"They're easier to make hallucinate. They're already seeing things that aren't there, so what's a little more? Not like they have the brain power to figure out what's real and what isn't."

"They aren't even worth that much."

He's seven, and his daily beatings have begun. He hurts all over, but he knows he has to learn to fight back.

He tries to land a punch and gets walloped over the head for his troubles.

"Not like that, boy! A punch like that will do piss-all in a real fight!"

"Yes, Father," he grinds out, hauling himself to his feet, not bothering to clutch his head. He knows that's a sure-fire way to get hit again.

Not that it matters, he's going to get hit again anyway. He'd like to avoid it though.

"Figures you'd turn out to be a weakling like your mother. Her 'legendary lineage' did nothing for her, she ran. Of course you'd inherit her one defining choice of shirking what you were born to do," Marcus spits.

"What do you mean?" Mercury asks, regretting his words the moment they fell from his mouth.

Marcus kicks him in the stomach. "Not your business, boy," he scolds. "Get up! You won't learn anything if you just lay there!"

"Yes, Father."

"Another deserter, Taurus? You'd think they'd be more inclined to stick to what they all say they were 'born' to do, wouldn't you?"

"Words are trivial, can be falsified and said without meaning, Torchwick. Make no mistake, for every deserter, five more step up to reclaim their birthright for equality."

"This old argument? You'd think we weren't friends."

"Shut it, Merc!"

"Oh, Em, did I ever tell you that I don't believe in being 'born' to do something? That I don't believe in birth rights? As far as I'm concerned, anyone who believes in that shit can go. To. Hell."

"How original."

Marcus is drunk again when he puts down a bottle of booze in front of his nine-year-old son. "Drink it," he orders.

"Aren't I too young?" Mercury asks, sitting on his hands as he's been taught to.

"Did I say you could ask questions, boy?"

"No, Father."

"That's what I thought. Take your hands out and drink," Marcus orders again, punctuating the last word with a slam of his whiskey bottle onto the table.

Mercury pulls his hands out and shakily reaches a hand out to the bottle. Marcus scowls.

"Stop that hand-shaking!" he snaps.

"Yes, Father. Sorry, Father," Mercury hurriedly says, his hand quickly grabbing the bottle and bringing it to his lips. He takes a sip before spitting it out.

"Stupid boy. Can't even drink booze. What a waste," Marcus laments. Mercury hangs his head in shame.

"Sorry, Father," he sniffs, tears forming at the corner of his eyes.

"Are you crying?! Stop that this instant! You are a boy! Boys don't cry!" Marcus scolds, whacking Mercury over the head.

"Yes, Father. Sorry, Father."

Marcus sneers again.

"What a waste of my time," he mutters under his breath. "Drink your booze."

This time, Mercury doesn't hesitate. He knows what to expect and doesn't spit out the foul liquid. He chugs it as quickly as he can and inwardly cries as it burns on the way down his throat.

Marcus looks over him, slightly more approving. "Better. Maybe now you'll grow up."

That night, Mercury goes to bed and silently cries. He opens the window and pukes into the bushes and vows to himself that if he can, he'll never drink that foul stuff again.

He knows he'll be forced to again; there's no way Marcus will be happy with him only doing it once.

"Beer?"

"Nah."

"Mercury, Mercury, Mercury, there are some pleasures in life that even we criminals get to participate in. One of those, is the consumption of the most brilliant thing in creation. Booze. We've got a lot of work, and beer is the best way to let loose."

"I don't want any."

"Would've thought you'd be all over it. The things I heard about Marcus Black tells me he was quite the drinker."

"I said, I. Don't. Want. Any... It muddles the senses; anything could go wrong in an instant and I'd rather have all my wits about me."

"Yeesh. Fine! More for me, then."

"Cigar?"

"Cancer sticks and lung inhibitors. Don't want any of that stuff either."

"For a little mercenary, you are a goody-two-shoes, aren't you?"

"I'm a better mercenary than you are, Torchwick. Better than my father. So what if I don't want shit that'll just make missions harder?"

"Not even going to deny the 'little' part?"

"No. Just shows that I'm not at my peak yet. For all I'm not an adult, I can kick the asses of every adult mercenary I've ever met."

"Tch, cocky little brat."

He struggled to breathe and lashed out. His strikes were blocked but Mercury wasn't down for the count yet. He swung his leg up and kicked his father in the face. He wraps his leg around his father's neck, swinging himself up onto his shoulders and squeezes his legs together, trying to choke him.

For once, the eleven-year-old has an upper hand.

It doesn't last long.

Marcus grabs his son by the neck and rips him off his back before throwing him into the wall. The boy can't help the groan that escapes his lips, and that brings a flurry of kicks and punches raining down upon him.

"Don't. Show. Weakness. Boy." Each word is accented by a punch and Mercury tries to block them with his arms, but he hurts too much to move.

A crack sounds out and Marcus stands back.

"And now you've broken yourself. See, if you actually listened when I train you, this wouldn't have happened!" Marcus yelled. He grabs Mercury by his arm and hauls him to his feet before roughly shoving him towards his room. "Go bandage your ribs and take a pain reliever. Come back out here straight after, we aren't done yet."

"Yes, Father."

Mercury hurries to do so, and when he pops open the bottle of pain relievers, he pauses for a moment. What would happen if he took more than the two the bottle tells him to?

He reads the bottle instructions more carefully and reads that overdosing can cause serious bodily harm. Liver damage, probably some gut problems, but the worst thing that can happen from overdose? Death.

Mercury stands there for a moment. Why wouldn't he take that option? Death would be kinder than the hell he lives each day.

"Boy! What's taking so long?!" Marcus yells from outside his room.

"I messed up the binding the first time! I'll be right out!" Mercury lies, hastily taking two pain reliever pills and leaving the bottle on the table.

Maybe next time.

"Ugh, suicide. What a cowardly way to go out."

"Lay off, Em. Saves us the trouble of killing them."

"Yeah, but killing yourself? I lived on the streets my entire life before Cinder found me. Nothing was so bad I thought that killing myself would be better. Not the hunger; not the scorn; not the constantly being hunted for by cops; not even the sick perverts that preyed on the younger kids. Killing yourself is never the answer."

"Oh, Emerald, how strong and brave you are to face such hardships! How could anyone hold themselves to such standards?"

"Oh, shut it, Mercury. It isn't like not killing yourself is hard~."

"It is when you don't have anything to live for."

"You keep that up and I'll start thinking you're suicidal. Cinder will be so~ pleased."

"You and Cinder have nothing to worry about. Suicide hasn't featured even in my wildest of wild dreams since I killed my old man."

"Good."

He's twelve when he gets his semblance.

Marcus is asleep on the couch; Mercury is training outside on his own.

When he realises what he's doing, he runs inside and wakes up his father.

"I unlocked my semblance, Father!" he excitedly gushes. Now he can prove he is strong. Now he can prove he isn't a waste of time and energy.

The look Marcus levels him makes him shrink backwards.

Pain flushes through him and his aura burns. He screams and screams until his voice is silent and his throat dry and cracked. He can hear his heart hammering in his ear alongside a ringing and he comes back to reality with a slap across the face.

"A semblance doesn't make you strong. You'll only grow dependent on it, and that makes you weak. When you can prove that you can be strong without your semblance, I'll give it back," Marcus tells him.

Dumbly, Mercury nods, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears.

"Go train."

"Yes, Father."

"Well done, Emerald, your control over your semblance is growing much stronger."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

...

"You're growing dependant on it."

"Mercury! What are you doing here?"

"I finished adjusting my legs. I quite like these ones. They're better than the ones my dad gave me in any case."

"If you say so. And what did you mean?"

"Hmm?"

"You said I was growing dependent on 'it'. What is 'it'?"

"Your semblance."

"Cinder-"

"Your semblance is the only thing you have going for you. You rely on it to win your battles; your fighting is mediocre at best and is only salvaged by your semblance. So, you focus on making our semblance better and completely neglect to improve your actual combat skills. A semblance doesn't make you strong. It makes you weak."

"You have a very twisted view of strong and weak."

"Hmph. If you could beat me without using your semblance, maybe I'd believe you. But, you can't, so it's not like you can say anything."

Marcus puts a bottle of vodka down on the table in front of a fifteen-year-old Mercury.

"Drink it and as many other bottles as I give you, and I'll answer one question of your choosing," the assassin tells his son.

Mercury looks up at his father and gulps. He knows what his question would be, but is he willing to drink to have it answered? How can he trust that he's telling the truth?

He decides to take his chances. Afterall, his father is a lot of things; he beats, he kills, he drinks... but he never lies.

He downs the first bottle, resolutely ignoring the burn as it goes down his throat. "What was my mother's name?"

Marcus raises an eyebrow. "That's what you're choosing to use your one question on?"

Mercury nods.

"Fine," Marcus shrugs as he places another bottle of vodka in front of his son. "Her name was Plata Calavera."

Mercury drinks the second bottle... then the third... then the fourth. He knows that he's drunk, and he's fighting to keep down the vomit, but he clings to his mother's name.

Plata Calavera.

After the fifth bottle of vodka, he vomits, and he knows from his father's sick grin that he's fallen into a trap.

He's strapped down onto the table, his legs dangling over the edge from halfway between his knees and his hips. That's when pain explodes into being.

At first, he thinks that his father set his legs on fire. Then he realises it is much worse.

Marcus is using a buzz saw to cut off his legs.

He tries to thrash, to kick out and escape, but his reflexes are slow, dulled by drunkenness, and his father's grip is too strong.

He doesn't try to hold back his screaming and crying. It hurts too much. He doesn't protest when blissful blackness takes him.

He wonders if he's going to die, if he'll finally be able to rest. He hopes that if this is Death come to take him, he gets to see his mother.

"Why'd you join us that night?"

"What do you mean?"

"The night Cinder and I found you. Why did you join us? Why stay all this time? You've made it clear you don't exactly like us, so why join and why stay on for over a year?"

"How old are you, Em?"

"Don't you know it is rude to ask a lady her age?"

"Just answer the damn question."

"Twenty-two."

"I'm seventeen."

"What?! That would've made you sixteen when Cinder and I found you!"

"Fifteen, actually. I was about a month out from turning sixteen when you found me."

"I find it very hard to believe a fifteen-year-old could kill anyone, let alone the assassin that trained them their entire life."

"Believe it. I was... I was done living under his thumb. I couldn't take it anymore. I could take the beatings; I'd grown up with them and it helped bring up my endurance. I could take the 'no questions' rule, even if it got me beat more times than I can count. I could take him forcing me to drink alcohol with him despite how much I hate the stuff, it lessened the pain, just a bit. Then, he took my legs. He got me drunk on vodka, strapped me to a table and amputated me with a buzz saw. When I woke up, I had prosthetic legs, and I couldn't take that. So, as soon as I thought I could manage it, I smashed his booze supply. We started fighting, and I just... snapped. I didn't care if I died, I had wanted to die when he took my legs, it was better than living with him for even another day. If I was going to die though, I wanted to see him dead first. I set the house on fire, and Dust was it good to see his alcohol burn. He didn't deserve to choke on smoke and get out of feeling his death though, so I hauled him outside. Then I shot him in the back of his neck, right where the spinal cord connects to the brain. Instant death."

"That's..."

"Yeah. Then you and Cinder showed up. I had everything to gain by going with you, and everything to lose by turning you down. I would've died of blood loss if you hadn't turned up, and you would've killed me if I said no. So, I said yes. I thought it would be a short deal, a quick client so I could get my legs cleaned up, and then I'd be on my way to a new life. Obviously, that never happened though."

"If you ever decided to leave, and I was the only thing stopping you, I'd let you go."

"Why?"

"I don't know... I guess you remind me of Jasper."

"Who?"

"My annoying little brother. He had a mouth on him, it got him into trouble all the time. In the end, he mouthed off to the wrong guy, and he got shot in the head. I couldn't give him the life he deserved."

"At least you had family who cared."

"It was the two of us against the world. I don't even remember how we ended up on the streets, just that we were brother and sister, and I would do anything for him. But I couldn't save him. Maybe I can save you."

"I don't need you to save me."

Mercury is seventeen when he makes his choice.

Alone, on the edge of the Emerald Forest, he makes a vow to himself.

"I am Mercury Black, son of Plata Calavera. I am not my father; I am my own person. I am a good person, and I won't let Cinder get in my way of making a new family for myself."

The only reply he gets is the wind howling in his face.

A/N: Welcome back to the Grimm Reaper. And yes, I know, its a shorter (words wise) chapter than usual, but this was an interesting one to write. All about Mercury, why he's acting differently to cannon, and how his childhood shaped him. Basically, I hopped on the 'Mercury could have silver eyes' train and ran with it. Also, inserting a chapter about him is my way of being evil and prolonging the suspence for the battle for Beacon. I felt it would be more evil in other positions, but hey, I'm not that bad.

Anyways, leave a review telling me your thoughts, or send me a PM if you want/need a chat (I'll reply as soon as I can). Otherwise, I'll see you next week with another chapter (I promise that this time it will be about the Battle for Beacon, not another character study).

- RebeccaMagic9