Mercury Black

In "Best Day Ever", Mercury is shown to be rather care-free and often jokes around when in the company of Emerald Sustrai, who he makes an effort to annoy. He seems to opt for excitement and action; he dislikes books without pictures and tells Emerald he finds the city boring. However, when it comes to matters at hand, Mercury displays a sense of seriousness and levelheadedness. However, his carefree attitude may occasionally slip out during combat, such as when he taunted Ruby Rose during both their encounters once he got the advantage. Based on his fight with Pyrrha Nikos, he appears to test and gauge his opponent before fully committing to an attack, showing he has a strategic mind and cunning. Mercury also seems to derive personal enjoyment from the pain of other people, showing no qualms about intimidating and killing others, even light-heartedly joking about it afterward with Emerald. Although subtle, he also speaks in a derogatory fashion about Tukson even after having murdered him in cold blood. Despite his usual carefree demeanor, in "The Next Step", it is shown that Mercury does not take insults or disrespect well, responding to Arthur Watts' insults with an eagerness to attack him until Emerald stops him. He is usually outspoken, but when he is with Salem's Inner Circle, he refrains from speaking. This was shown again in "Lost" when he lashed out at and attacked Tyrian Callows when the latter mocked him for being a child that feels like a "big bad man" and correctly assuming all Mercury knows in life are pain and violence, condescendingly calling his life "such a tragedy". Unlike Emerald, Mercury also realizes that Cinder Fall never truly cared for him and that in the end, their relationship was purely business. Despite this, he was very compliant with her orders. Mercury carries an immense bitterness within him due to his abusive upbringing by his assassin father, Marcus Black. This bitterness holds over due to the fact that Marcus used his Semblance to steal Mercury's, which he said would return if Mercury became strong enough, which he proved the moment he killed his father. This turned out to be a lie, and Mercury feels as though he has had to work harder than any other member of Salem's Inner Circle due to his stolen Semblance. His father abused him physically and emotionally and that he used to constantly beat him up and call it "training" while telling him that he was weak and relying on crutches, making it obvious he suffered a miserable upbringing filled with hate and misery. In the same episode, Tyrian later alludes that the only reason Mercury is on their side is because of Marcus' influence and that he is now too afraid to leave the few things he knows: pain and violence. Despite his demeanor, Mercury does indeed possess a sense of camaraderie. This is seen in his relationship with Emerald, where after Yang Xiao Long had come up with the Relic of Knowledge and assuming Cinder had perished, he had helped an emotionally distraught Emerald to get her back on her feet and escape with him and Hazel when it became apparent that the odds were no longer in their favor. In "Midnight", Mercury again attempted to get Emerald to understand Cinder's selfishness and lack of genuine care for her after the two returned from disobeying Salem's orders, implying that he was worried for her being potentially dragged down with Cinder and punished by Salem or killed. In "War", after Emerald goes to Mercury about what she learned concerning Salem's true goal, Mercury tries to dissuade her from going against Salem in order to prevent herself from getting killed. However, after hearing Tyrian casually confirm that Salem's goals are indeed to destroy all of Remnant, he is shown to visibly unnerved. Later upon leaving to Vacuo, he returns her worry by nodding his head to her in goodbye. In the “Volume 9 Bonus Ending Animatic“, Mercury has become increasingly unsure of his actions following the revelation from Tyrian that Salem intends to destroy Remnant, as during their break out of Gillian Asturias and Jax Asturias, Mercury was notably distraught.