Onyx Abyss

"You can be better."

- Onyx Abyss

Onyx Abyss is one of the very lucky few to survive the fall of Mountain Glenn, unlike his father and uncle, Wilhelm and Jacob Abyss. As the last living member of his family, Onyx is also the only remaining known user of the inherited Semblance Grimmitation, which does what the name implies. He lost control of his Semblance and quite nearly became a true Grimm as a result. If not for Peter Port accidentally catching him whilst hunting for Grimm to use in his annual introductory lecture for the first years at Beacon, Onyx may have never regained his humanity. Since this event was he has become very fond of granting others second chances.

Appearance
Onyx has a sturdy build with wide-set shoulders and a broad chest. His muscles are well developed but not bulging. His skin is quite pale, in contrast with his black hair and it seems no amount of sunlight can change that feature of his body. His eyes are sharp and his nose narrow, giving a hawk-like impression to those who fall under his more intense stares. On his back are old scars that appear to have been made by a serrated blade and appear quite painful. Otherwise he prefers to wear plain black pants and a black V-neck shirt that has a white Dust crystal emblem on the back. He also tries to go barefoot at every opportunity, though he can be convinced to wear sandals.

History
Onyx is one of the few survivors of the Mountain Glenn incident. His father and uncle, Wilhelm and Jacob Abyss, were asked to take charge of the budding city’s defense. The people who moved to the city felt relatively safe given that the famed ‘Brothers Grimm’, well known for their feat of being the ones to clear the mountain prior to and during the initial construction of the new urban center. Onyx was just a child when the city was overrun; he managed to grab the gauntlets and flee the city using his family’s shared Semblance, Grimmitation. It took several years for Onyx to regain control of his body from his Semblance – as he had needed to go fully Grimm in order to escape death and the attention of many true Grimm – only to find himself in a Huntsman’s trap. Luckily for him, it was one Peter Port, who had taken it upon himself to bring the boy back to Vale with him after finding him caught in his Grimm trap. The experienced Huntsman kept an eye on the young boy and set him up in his childhood home. That Onyx simply accepted this with a grateful smile didn’t confuse the teacher; the well-fed man simply mustache-smiled and regaled the pale boy with tales of his own childhood. Port kept checking in on Onyx as the boy grew and took time to help him train on the weekends. During the week Onyx would practice using more and more of his Semblance to try and get complete control of it like his father and uncle held in life. One day, however, Onyx vanished. A note was left behind for the man stating that the youth had departed to reclaim his inheritance. Though uneasy and worried, the Huntsman knew Onyx would be able to take care of himself and knew that he himself had done many similar things in his own younger years.

Though it took another few years, Onyx had reclaimed Lumen Tenebrae by the time he was fifteen. He’d had to backtrack to where Port had first found him and then track reported sightings of any small, odd-looking Grimm from the time before that but after Mountain Glenn’s fall. He put his practice with his Semblance to the test during this period of time, managing to control his full Grimm transformation enough to evade detection by most Grimm, though he did lose several months whilst he was stuck running with a Beowulf pack before he regained control of himself once more. He refuses to speak of what happened between then and when he returned to Peter Port’s home with Lumen Tenebrae in hand, though the scars on his back do not paint a pretty picture; his reaction when questioned about them is the same as when he was asked about that particular portion of his time traveling. Port couldn’t get an answer from him about those last few months.

Personality

Onyx is fairly quiet, only speaking up when he feels he must or that it is important. If he is with those he is close with, however, he is likely to speak more normally and openly. Onyx is of a similar mindset in regards to personal information. If it is important, he will reveal things to others; otherwise he doesn’t speak up because he does not wish to burden others with his story unnecessarily. Everyone has his or her own story to bear in Onyx’s opinion.

He treats the world as it is in the moment, rather than making a fuss about the way things are - for better or worse. If the world were to turn against him, he would respond in kind. Likewise, if the world were to suddenly achieve peace, he would accept that and move on with his life unless ‘the peace’ demanded his death. Then he’d simply abandon the world.

Onyx sees the best in people and will sometimes strive to bring it out – he does not go out of his way to do this however. In this, his actions are opportunistic. He trusts his instincts quite a bit in addition to that and also feels all his emotions quite intensely. While he does not always express them well, his eyes tend to truly be a set of windows to his soul and reveal how he is feeling quite clearly. Weapon - Lumen Tenebrae

Lumen Tenebrae is a pair of silver-platinum alloy gauntlets with tribal engravings on them in very intricate patterns that cut off seemingly at random along seams that are spaced along the portions that cover each arm. Those seams exist because the segments are capable of rotation, altering the flow of the engravings, which reach the hand-covering portion of the gauntlets. The engravings are lined with mercury and the inner workings which control the locking mechanism, which is activated and deactivated by slamming his arms together in an ‘x’, is made of an alloy of tin and gold.

Lumen Tenebrae was designed by Onyx’s father Wilhelm to be compatible with their shared Semblance. His uncle Jacob first constructed it, but neither man ever had the chance to use it before his death. Onyx inherited it and has only recently had the correct arm size to wield the two gauntlets. The interior of each is covered by thick leather pads, which can be shrunk to accommodate arm growth.

Semblance - Grimmitation
Grimmitation is the name given to the Semblance that has been held by a majority of the Abyss family for generations. It granted them the power to immitate Grimm far too well. Most of the family line was lost due to overuse of the Semblance, resulting in out of control false Grimm who were either quickly slain by their friends and family or killed for getting to close to a Grimm Nest and being figured out. If used in moderation it enables an Abyss to either use the shadowy energy the Grimm seem to dissolve into at death to create energy blasts or use the Grimms' bone armor generation powers to create an exoskeleton.

It was long thought that there may be a method to control the method of transformation and emittance with the aid of Dust or a specially crafted weapnon, but it wasn't until the famous "Brothers Grimm", Wilhelm and Jacob Abyss, that any success was met. Their collaborative masterpiece, Lumen Tenebrae ("Light of the Darkness"), was completed shortly before the destruction of Mountain Glenn, but it would allow the wielder (given that they possessed the Semblance it was designed for) to control smaller scale generation of both the shadows and the bone armor due to the engraved rotating segments of the arm sections of the gauntlets. Even with that reducing the need to focus on keeping the transformation from spreading to the entire body, using Grimmitation without the aid of the gauntlets, or on any part of the wielder's body save the gauntletted arms, can have dire consequences and may even result in temporary insanity and bloodlust.

Trivia

 * Onyx Abyss is based loosely on the hunter from the Grimm Red Riding Hood, and his father and uncle are named after the famous Brothers Grimm who wrote the original tales.
 * Onyx's habit of giving people a second chance is seen by some as a kindness, others as foolishness, still others as weakness, and the smart ones as a warning. With Onyx, there is usually no third chance.
 * Onyx has, while out of control, killed people. He should consider himself lucky he never really had the time to stop and eat them since he was too busy fleeing from his unintentional victims' allies. He has no memory of these times, nor does he believe he ever will recall them, but he is aware of them due to the information coming up during his search for Lumen Tenebrae. He has since become even more determined to be a great Huntsman, to make up for those who died due to his Grimm-self's actions.
 * Peter Port is the closest thing Onyx had to family after his father and uncle died prior to attending Beacon.
 * Given how he spent several years in a state close to a coma, his level of mental maturity is surprising. Having spent so long running on base instincts like he did was not conductive to maturing as a person, however the search for Lumen Tenebrae and whatever happened in those months he won't talk about seem the likely reasons for the miracle that is Onyx acting his age.