Ciarán Abraham

 "Have you ever wondered why people fear the night?  Have you ever wondered what lurks in the dark?  And, have you ever wondered what to do if you found it?  Well, that's where I come in."

Ciarán, on his training.

Character is property of Use: Lurooke Surana

Profile

 * Name: Ciarán Abraham


 * Nickname: Broody, Sunshine (Both come from Silver), The Bat (from his reputation)


 * Species: Faunus (Bat)


 * Age: 17


 * Gender: Male


 * Height: 6'3"


 * Weight: 180 lbs.


 * Hair: Black


 * Eye: Black
 * Alignment: Chaotic Good


 * Emblem Color: Black and Silver
 * Emblem: Dawn & Dusk centered, Twin Hellspitters crossed against Dawn & Dusk, silhouetted against the moon


 * Birthday: November 1st


 * Profession: Beacon Academy Student (Currently), Member of the Brotherhood of the Night (Lifetime)


 * Likes: Killing monsters, being alone, riding his motorcycle, weapons training, the night, drawing, collecting new weapons, infiltration, intimidating his targets, learning more about monsters


 * Dislikes: Letting targets get away, retreating from a fight, the day, extended interaction with other people


 * Weapon: Nocturne Blade (Longsword),  Hellspitters (Twin Dust-powered revolvers)


 * Semblence: Silent Step


 * Affiliation: Team SCRM (Leader)


 * Partner: Midori Victor


 * Theme Song: Van Helsing theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dyfDq9w0ac


 * Battle Theme: Batman theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6frI0Xjufg

Appearance
"You want a sign that just says 'I'm dark and mysterious'?  Because I don't think you made it obvious enough."

Silver, on Ciarán's appearance

Ciarán's body seems almost custom-made to blend into the night. Black hair, black eyes, black clothes, everything that makes him harder to find at night, but in the day, he just sticks out in a crowd. His black leather coat also has his emblem sewn in on the back. He has an X-shaped scar on his face from a Beowulf attack, right under his left eye. Naturally, as this tends give a pretty memorable face, Ciarán wears a black scarf over the lower half of his face. He also wears his large black fedora (which is not in the picture because there were no fedoras on chibi maker) to hide his face further. His long hair and fedora also neatly cover up his bat ears, though they don't impair his advanced hearing.

Personality
"I don't brood.  I skulk.  Big difference."

Ciarán, on his social prowess

Ciarán is the quiet loner. He likes to spend his time studying and planning to learn more about the monsters he faces, as if the Hunt is the only thing that matters to him. As such, his two greatest interests are training to kill monsters more efficiently, and discovering new kinds of monsters to hunt. His deep hatred of monsters stems from multiple events from his childhood, both when he narrowly survived an attack from a Beowulf that left his scar, and his older brother losing an eye as a result of a fight with a special kind of Grimm called a Nightmare in downtown Vale. This was even more traumatic to him than his own attack, since he was raised almost entirely by his brother Reilly, who was 12 years older than him, and their parents died in a car crash when Ciarán was three.

Ciarán prefers to spend his time alone, afraid that if anyone gets too close to him, they will get hurt or even killed. Despite being slow to trust, he is fiercely loyal to those he gets close too, and has undying loyalty to his friends. It's these qualities that made Ozpin choose Ciarán to lead Team SCRM. He puts the needs of his team above his own needs, often put himself in unnecessary danger as a result.

Ciarán has a very dry sense of humor, often acting as the foil for Silver's sarcasm, but will often humorlessly point out the obvious flaws in Midori's experiments and schemes. Since most of the monsters he hunts come out at night, Ciarán likes to sleep a lot during the day, and go out looking for trouble at night. This also ties into his nature as a bat faunus, spending most of the day inactive. He has told his teammates that he is a Faunus, but doesn't make a big deal of it since he feels they're the only ones who need to know, and making it a widely known fact would just drawn unwanted attention that take time away from his skulking, and we can't very well have that. However, if he sees another Faunus being discriminated against, Ciarán will step in and intervene, and is very likely to respond with violence.

Ciarán is also an absolutist, seeing everyone around him as either an ally or an enemy,  As such, he often relies on his teammates for help when making major moral decisions as it is very difficult for him to see shades of gray. However, he doesn't see himself as a judge, but rather a protector against forces that people don't understand or even know about. He also hates to lose, and will easily become obsessive if a target eludes him, and Ciarán will making eliminating that target his only goal in life thereafter, even at disregard for his own safety.

Weapons & Abilities
"So, what's the point of your pistols if you don't start off with them?" "Well, if the Nocturne Blade doesn't get the job done, I find explosive rounds usually will."''  "And if explosive rounds don't work?"  "Then God help us."''

Ciarán, explaining his Hellspitters to Rowan


 * Nocturne Blade- Ciarán's signature weapon, and the weapon with each he has had the most training and the highest proficiency.  The blade was forged from meteorite rock recovered by the Brotherhood, and was given to him to use as he saw hit during his time at Sanctum.  He forged it into a longsword, with an entirely black blade.  He also designed the sword in the fashion of a Celtic Cross, with the circle of the cross going from the top of the hilt to the bottom of the blade.  He also specially designed the scabbard, both aesthetically with black flames inlaid on the outside and fitting the circle on the sword, and functionally with sharpening stones on the inside of the scabbard.
 * Hellspitters- A pair of revolvers Ciarán keep loaded with hollow-point explosive rounds propelled by fire Dust.  However, Angel prefers not to use them as his primary weapons, and will only switch to them if Dawn runs completely out of ammunition.
 * Tracking- Ciarán's training included learning how to identify leavings by his targets, down to smallest stone out of place.  As such, Ciarán is an expert tracker who can identify tracks up to a week old, and has at longest, spent two months tracking down a target.
 * Stealth- Perhaps the most important part of his training, Ciarán is a master at hiding out in plain sight.  This is made even easier with Silent Step, so unless he's being actively searched for, Ciarán can effectively be invisible.
 * Semblence- Silent Step: Ciarán's semblence allows him to muffle his movements into complete silence, effectively creating a bubble around himself sound cannot leave.  Naturally, Ciarán uses this mainly for stealth purposes, however the downside is he cannot communicate verbally while his semblence is active.

History
"'Don't be afraid of the dark.  Be afraid of what hunts in the dark.  Like me."

Ciarán, on the results of his training

Ciarán was born into an average middle class family in Vale, to a family with both parents and a 12 year-old brother named Reilly. These very early years were relatively healthy and happy for the family, but when Ciarán was 3, both of his parents were killed in a car crash. Ciarán and Reilly were subsequently sent to live in an orphanage, though it wasn't meant to last long. About 3 years after the death of their parents, Reilly became lost in downtown Vale late at night, and had an encounter that changed the lives of the brothers forever. Reilly was attacked by what he believed was a crazed homeless person, who gouged out Reilly's right eye and attempted to eviscerate him. However, a dark shadowy figure appeared and killed the crazed person, narrowly saving Reilly's life. The woman then treated Reilly's wounds, and watched over him until Reilly regained consciousness. The woman, named Mina, then explained to Reilly that his attacker was in fact a member of an international criminal organization knows as The Nightmare, an organization bent on world domination by those who take full advantages of the powers Dust has given man; which is to say; those who have had Dust tattoos to enhance their Aura and Semblences, and those who use the Dust to get in contact with, and control, supernatural forces. The ultimate goal of The Nightmare is to use their Dust and supernatural enhancements to understand and control the "minds" of Grimm, and use them as an army in a war of conquest against the Four Kingdoms. She then further explained that she was a member of the Brotherhood of the Night, an elite sect of Huntsman and Huntresses who specialized in tracking and destroying Nightmares. Reilly then pleaded with her for he and his brother to be allowed to enter into the order as initiates, since they had little prospects in life. Never one to turn down perfectly good recruits, especially one so impressionable at a young age, she accepted, and Ciarán and Reilly spent their childhoods at the Brotherhood's underground headquarters in Vale.

The training was very different for the two brothers, with Ciarán being trained as an elite Hunter of the Brotherhood, and Reilly was trained as a the Brotherhood's future librarian; the one responsible for learning and maintaining the Brotherhood's collected knowledge on Nightmares and other Grimm. One would think that Reilly would grow to be resentful of Ciarán for being trained as a Hunter while he became the bookkeeper, but Reilly confided in his brother that he was too traumatized by his experience to face monsters again. Ciarán all but reveled in his training, never showing any true fear, and felt empowered by learning how to strike back against the creatures of the night, like ghosts, humans and faunus who believe themselves to be of a supernatural persuasion, and, of course, Nightmares. He became a master swordsman, firearms expert, master tracker, and master of stealth over the 14 years he spent training with the Brotherhood.

However, by the Brotherhood's mandate, Ciarán didn't spend the entirety of his training in an underground fortress though; the Brotherhood's connections sent him to Sanctum Academy when he was 13. But before he left, he was finally inducted as a fully active member of the Brotherhood. Ciarán felt fairly alienated from the other students at Sanctum, since the majority of the students there were experiencing the training he'd know most of his life for the first time. As a result, he kept to himself most of the time, and didn't go out of his way to make friends. He was an excellent student, and forged Dawn & Dusk and the Hellspitters during his time there. Most of the years at Sanctum were relatively uneventful, though he did like to sneak out at night when he could to go Hunting. Naturally, this got him in trouble on several occasions, though he never could be punished for anything more than breaking curfew. Aside from incidents like those, Ciarán's years at Sanctum were relatively peaceful. However, when Ciarán was 16, he was hunting a Nightmare in the forest of Forever Fall during his summer break, and during the hunt, Ciarán received his infamous scar in a Beowulf attack. He fought it off and did eventually kill his target. However, Ciarán considers this his biggest embarrassment as the scar came from a non-thinking monster.

And now at Beacon to complete his training, Ciarán has become the leader of Team SCRM and looks to lead his team to greatness, and Ciarán hopes to become as close to a perfect Hunter he can become. But even at Beacon, Ciarán is needed when the sun goes down...

Relationships

 * Silver Jameson: Silver and Ciarán have a big friendly rivalry, both of them know that Silver is the unofficial ambassador of the team, while they also both know Silver doesn't have what it takes to be the leader.  Ciarán often acts as Silver's comic foil, while Silver loves to outdo his "fearless leader".
 * Midori Victor: As Ciarán's partner, Midori is the teammate Ciarán relies on the most.  They have a mutual trust and respect, and Midori knows the most about the monsters Ciarán hunts (besides Ciarán himself).  Ciarán in turn, brings back "ingredients" from his hunts that Midori needs for her various experiments.  While these experiments tend to scare Silver, Ciarán's training allowed him to see the necessity of Midori's work.
 * Rowan Crusoe: Rowan looks up to Ciarán as a leader, though in reality, Ciarán is only a little more socially competent than Rowan, due to spending most of his childhood in an underground training complex.  However, since Rowan grew up with her mother in the wilderness most of her life, Ciarán's experience with the Brotherhood are some of the most exciting stories Rowan's ever heard.

Quotes
"I'm a denizen of darkness, doomed to a team of morning people."

Ciarán on his teammates morning routines

"There at least four... Seem to be Beowulfs... Average size... And one of them has a deformed ear." "How do you know it has a deformed ear?" "Because it's hiding behind you.  Get down."

Ciarán and Midori during their initiation

"So, what's it like hunting Nightmare agents?" "Well, I'd imagine it's a lot like dating Silver.  They change their tactics based on the target, they're into some really weird tactics during, and they don't call you back in the morning."

Ciarán describing his work to Rowan

"Hey Broody, did you leave this video camera in my hat?" "Yes.  I planned to use the footage as an instructional video for Brotherhood recruits on how not to fight."

Ciarán teasing Silver

"Suaimhneas síoraí dá anam."

Ciarán to his targets postmortem

"Light and darkness are two sides of the same coin.  There's nothing inherently evil about darkness, just as there's nothing inherently good about light."

Ciarán's philosophy

"You don't rule the night.  I AM THE NIGHT!"

Ciarán to one of his targets

Trivia

 * All members of Team SCRM are allusions to one or more characters from adventure and horror novels.  Abraham is an allusion to Abraham Van Hesling from Dracula.
 * In addition, all members of Team SCRM also have some form of scar or physical deformity.  Ciarán's is the X-shaped scar under his right eye, though he does generally wear the scarf to prevent it being seen.
 * Ciarán is a Gaelic name meaning "little dark one", reflecting his main color being black.
 * "Suaimhneas síoraí dá anam" is a Gaelic translation of "Rest in peace".
 * Ciarán owns a black, gray and silver motorcycle named The Pale Rider.
 * He treats the motorcycle like a person, and will have full conversations with it.  It's one of the few times that there are sparks of genuine happiness for Ciarán, and his teammates feel it's better to indulge him on this topic.
 * The Nocturne Blade's composition of meteorite rock is a reference to Sokka's sword from Avatar: The Last Airbender.