Grau Spiegel

"“Mirrors warp everything they reflect, bouncing it back and showing the ugliness in their beauty. Everytime I look into a mirror, I’m the same. Does that make me ugly?”"

- Grau Spiegel

Appearance:
I’m poor so can’t afford an artist, also I have the precision of a drunken claw-machine. Have some descriptions instead.Grau wears an unbuttoned short-sleeve gray lab-coat that trails down his ankles,  an absurd amount of zipper pockets strewn across it. Underneath that he wears a white sleeveless turtleneck with a black cross going down the middle, the sides of the cross going around him. His pants are a plain black, save for the upside-down white cross on his left-leg. His shoes are just plain-brown loafers.

He doesn’t have any accessories, unless you count his slim-red oval glasses as one anyway. Across his bare arm are archaic looking tattoos, actually being an assortment of dust tattooed onto his skin. The same tattoos are on his legs as well, obviously hidden by his pants.

Facial features. Graying red-hair that’s mostly gray at this point, usually messy, though slicks into a small ponytail back for fights, missions, and whenever he’s experimenting. His eyes are discoloured, the left one being black and right being white. Atop his are four goat-horns, being his obvious faunus features. The two and the side of his head curl downwards towards his neck, while the two above his forehead curl around and hover by the side of said forehead.

Personality:
Grau is someone who sees the worst in everything, totally channeling out the rest and only pointing out flaws rather than benefits. He’s incredible pragmatic, and despite his young age, is said to be incredibly mature. Considered a genius for his high-level of knowledge on dust and it’s usages, plus basic areas of study such as history and math as well. He knows several different fighting styles, all of which he melds into one to form his own adaptable cohesive fighting style. Some say if he was a human, he’d be perfect.

Those that say that are blind.

While Grau does have all those traits from a distance, up close he’s drastically different, for the most part anyway. He does only see the worst in everything, and while some assume this is because he wants to improve that something or someone, it’s because that’s all he can see. He doesn’t see “positives,” only “negatives.” Anything that can be subjected is warped to him, which is exactly why he relishes cold-hard facts.

Facts can’t deceive. The sky will always be blue, fire will always be hot, and not taking showers will always make you smell. If a “fact” does deceive him, it greatly troubles and confuses him, and he must get to the bottom of it. The main-reason he studies so many fields, actually. If a theory he believes to be fact is wrong, he finds out why, and establishes that as a fact.

Problem is, he has a habit of doing this to people as well. The negatives he puts on people are facts to him,  so when someone goes out of their way and does something that doesn’t fall under his facts, he pretty much has a crisis.

While his pragmatism is real, his maturity is in fact not.

What is portrayed as maturity to most people is actually him just using large words to sound intelligent to the lesser minded whilst seeping an aura of absolute truth and calm of the mind. That was an example. In simpler terms, he uses big words to sound smart while sounding composed and totally assured in everything he says. He doesn’t do this on purpose, it’s just the way he talks. He can’t decide what people think of him.

In reality, while not being mature, he’s incredibly childish. The first example would be when he enters “crisis-mode,” while another would be how he pretty much has no sense of independent thought. He can’t decide anything for himself, the sole exception of this being his experiments. If he’s at a crossroads, chances are he’d sit there for the longest time possible before turning back entirely.

He needs other people to tell him what to do in just about every case. He’s entirely dependent on others to help him act out the day. It doesn’t help much that he’s incredibly obedient to a flaw, even fulfilling the dumbest of requests. The only reason he knows the basic fundamentals of surviving is because he was taught to. The same applies to everything he’s taught himself through books. “It’s proper for a growing boy to learn these things,” so he learned them. “Brush your teeth everyday,” so he does.

He’s incapable of thinking for himself, so he takes the thoughts and commands of others as a substitute. Well, that’s an over-exaggeration, since he can think for himself, otherwise everything previously mentioned wouldn’t really be accurate, but that’s on a minor scale.

Pretty much, he’s someone who’s mistakenly called mature when really he’s just a child.

Backstory:
Grau was born to two scientist parents, each in different fields of study, but both working for Atlas. As such, he grew up in the rather bitterly cold regions of Atlas, his only playmates being the automatons in the house made by his mother. He wasn’t particularly interested in them, but his parents told him to play with them, and as they both said, “A good boy listens and does what he’s told.”

As they were his parents, he listened. He didn’t hold them in particularly high regard, but he knew from the rare opportunity of looking at other children, that it was typical to obey whatever parents said, so he did. As he grew older, people started to say he would probably follow in his parents footsteps, so he did, and began studying both their fields of study.

Pretty soon, it became apparent to his parents that he was only doing what was expected of him, and never what he really wanted. True, they were hardly ever around, but they weren’t idiots. They confronted him about it, to which case he criticized and berated both of them on their less than acceptable parenting skills.

Having grown up with lifeless machines as his only companions, he developed a sort of attraction to them. Not a romantic one, nor sexual, just the innocent attraction of a curious child. As his only role-models, he viewed them as the ideal “creatures,” and strived to become like them. Partially where his obeying everything habit comes from.

However, as he grew older, he began to see the flaws in the machines, namely lacking everything “people” did. At this revelation, he grew bitter and cold, having his role-models stolen away from him with the cold-truth of reality. It was at this point his steady change of only seeing the bad and worshipping “facts” came to be.

Now this brings us to where he berates his parents. They were shocked to hear how he thinks of them, and even more shocked as the scene around them became warping and changing, including themselves. Grau looked at the scene curiously as his parents were in a confused panic, not knowing that his semblance had manifested for the first due to his intense thoughts and feelings. Neither did he know it was being projected from the mirror on the wall. Being the only “normal” thing in the scene, he ignored his parents begging pleas, left the room, and then locked them in.

He called his parents lab and explained the scenario, and they in turn called for a Hunter as they believed the monsters he meant were Grimm. For about a day and a half, he stood by the door, expressionless as they pounded on it, begging for food, water, and the need to use the bathroom. He ignored it, as he fully believed they were monsters beyond saving. Finally, after that time, the Hunter unlocked the door and investigated.

To say he was surprised would be an understatement, but being a Hunter he composed himself and dragged his parents out rather than kill them. As he did, they turned to normal. The Hunter began investigating, and quickly found the source of the problem, being the mirror, and broke it. He recognized what happened as the use of a semblance, and points at that Grau had his aura unlocked.

His parents, still in a somewhat delirious state, practically shouted at him for what he did, and demanded they tell him where he got his aura unlocked. Unfazed by everything he shot back that maybe if they paid attention to him, they would know.

In truth, it happened to Grau when he was younger, having his aura unlocked by one of his father’s co-workers who happened to be a retired Hunter. It was pretty random, one day simply asking what it was he worked on, the rather old-man saying he studied dust now so the future generation of Hunter’s could have some help from old-timers like him.

He asked what Hunter’s were, and the old man explained. At hearing what they were, Grau became enchanted, fascinated at the idea of how they fought the creatures of Grimm for the purpose of others. He related it wasn’t so different from what his parents did, and decided at that moment he would become a Hunter.

It should be noted, this encounter was before his dependency was so heavy, happening at a much younger age. This is also the first and only time Grau has decided on a path for himself.

The retired Hunter, happy to help the new generation and a child with a dream, unlocked his aura, and offered to teach him a few tricks when he grew older.

At present time in his house, the Hunter defuses the situation before it can escalate, and notes he recognizes Grau from somewhere. Grau says it’s probably from the Dust theories he’s published, but the man denies this, and says it’s from the posters around town. Apparently, Grau has participated in some minor tournaments near the area, and has won every single one. As they were all minor in nature, there wasn’t much publicity or press on them, and no one really cared. The Hunter continues to say one of his friends went there, and said he mopped the floor with the competition, something that’s quite impressive as all of the contestants were Hunters-in-training, and nothing to sneeze at.

Grau shrugs, saying they were nothing special, and the Hunter offers him a deal. He only knows some people who know more people, and could get him into a prestigious academy ahead of time since he’s so skilled. His parents, forgotten, immediately speak up and say no son of theirs, if they can even call him that, is going to walk out. Grau says it’s his decision, not theirs, and accepts.

The next week waiting for the Bullhead to arrive and take him to Beacon is a terse one, as his parents all but avoid him out of fear and misunderstood feelings that he hates them, when in truth he could care less about them. The Bullhead arrives shortly, and the only person he says goodbye to is the old-retired Hunter.

As a side-note on why he choose Beacon, he saw less problems with it than the Academy at Atlas, something that’s odd considering a militaristic environment should practically be his dream. The ideal image of a Hunter for him is not a soldier though, which is possibly why he frowns upon the Academy so much.

Relationships:
Team NGRM:

Nigrum Leivent:

Abilities:
Not really an ability, but he knows several different kinds of martial arts, excelling at CQC as a result. Thanks to the Dust tattoos on his arms, all his punches can pack a little bit of elemental kick. The same applies to his kicks as well, but he doesn’t use that as much, lest his pants and shoes be affected. His knowledge expands to various places as well, being able to answer most basic, and even advanced, school-work questions.

His forte above all of those is science, specifically on the study of Dust and its applications. Because of that, he can do various tricks with raw untouched dust, practical and unpractical included.

Semblance:
Grau’s semblance is simple in nature. If only that were true. He can creature illusions. Or rather, it’s a bit more complex. In reality, he projects his own view of something onto another something that isn’t. Better said, he can make illusions, he just can’t specifically chose what comes out of it, as it’s his own view, and he’s not going to spontaneously change those mid-combat, now is he?

Because of this, all his illusions are warped in nature. He doesn’t see any beauty, so his illusions can’t be beautiful, or portray it. Grassy green-fields change to strange hellish landscapes, and people, well...that depends on the person. If he sees a thief, or a liar, then it portrays a “monster” befitting of that role.

To further add to the complication, it can’t apply illusions directly, rather, he needs a conduit. Specifically, through reflections. Oddly, his ability allows both what is shown on the reflection, and what is going on in reality, to appear real, adding to the illusion. Electronic devices are not affected by this. The easiest way to get rid of the illusion would be to strike the conduit, or by leaving its radius. If someone or something isn’t in the reflection, then they’re not in the illusion, nor can they see it.

Weapon:
Devi’s Apparition, as the weapon is called, is a large mirror-shield that’s about the size of his body in terms of height, but in terms of width is just a bit bigger. The weapon cannot transform in the slightest, but can absorb dust that hits the front. The dust it absorbs can be used when he swings it around, or alternatively, if enough dust is absorbed, can be shot back out like a beam, or in small burst rounds. The dust absorbed can will obviously alter the effects of the energy that comes out, combined effects happening as a result.

Despite the front of the shield being glass to serve as a conduit for his semblance, it’s actually quite sturdy, being able to take several heavy-hits without the glass so much as cracking. Added on how dust-attacks are virtually ineffective against it, it’s quite a formidable weapon.

Combat:
Despite the defensive capabilities of Devil’s Apparition, he hardly uses it. True, absorbing dust attacks is useful, but Grimm can’t use dust. Rather, with his dust tattoos, he pours dust into it, and then uses it offensively. Of course the flaw in this includes using his free-hand to touch the front, leaving him wide-open. Alternatively, when fighting dust-users, the flaw in that is the dust must hit the front of the shield.

Using his free-hand, he acts like a mage, flinging dust via his dust tattoos, though the effects are rather minor and hardly cause any damage. If he opts to not use his shield for whatever reason, he is quite formidable in hand-to-hand, acting as an elemental fighter of sorts.

To sum it up, he’s the defender of the team, being stellar at close-range, and also able to take several hits before being worn down. Medium and long-range aren’t his specialty, unless he’s using Devil’s Apparition dust capabilities anyway.

Notes:

 * Grau’s fullname in German means Gray Mirror.
 * On the topic of mirrors, Grau is based off of two of them. The Magic Mirror in Snow White, and the Warped Mirror of the Devil Troll in the Snow Queen.
 * The reason for him being a goat-faunus is symbolic towards how the Devil Troll wielded the warped mirror, and how goat’s are related to the devil.
 * The Dust Tattoos on his arms and legs are just the four basic types, other special ones present.
 * As slightly mentioned in his backstory, he has published dust theories, though they’re rather obscure and can’t really be found unless one is actively looking for them.