Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-114.79.60.17-20160626164308/@comment-4010415-20180628155947

Rion Dragonheart wrote: Maybe his Semblance is knowing what another person's Semblance does? Or something along the lines of the Scan spell in FF8, completely analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the characters. You see:

1.) Mercury is the only person who figures out what Pyrrha's Semblance is just by experiencing it.

2.) Though Roman was able to block her to an extent in Volume 2, it was Mercury who figured out how to completely counter Ruby's Semblance.

3.) In his fight against Yang (where people have already noted), he left her with enough Aura to be on the defensive once Emerald used her Semblance on her. Had her Aura been any higher she might've not reacted the same way. If her aura was lower, she might've lost instead and Cinder's plan would take a hit. 1. He could tell what Pyrrha's Semblance does because his gun boots are made of metal, and she was able to move his leg by pulling on his boot without even touching it. The only logical conclusion was polarity, as she specifically pulled on his metal gun boot.

2. Maybe, but he has assassin training and, as we saw in his and Emerald's fight against Coco and Yatsuhashi, he can be incredibly fast. This could just say more about his general skill in knowing how and where to kick, from his assassin training and his combat being kick-based.

3. It's implied that he and Emerald had observed and investigated other students, rather than just Pyrrha, since Emerald said "And finally, Pyrrha Nikos", as if they had been going down a list and talking about other students for a while that night. This would likely be why Cinder purposely set up JNPR vs BRNZ to cater to Nora's Semblance (She and Emerald spoke as if they knew JNPR would win).

So, they may have already found out ahead of time what Yang's Semblance does, though I think they were more focused on Yang's personality and fighting style. After all, Yang has shown, even before that fight, that she has anger problems and a retaliatory nature. It would've been insanely easy for Cinder to guess that Yang's reaction to someone trying to attack her would be to counter attack. Meanwhile, someone like Blake would dodge, and Pyrrha would block with her shield. Their goal was to have someone "injure" Mercury, and Yang fit the bill because of her personality and fighting style.

All they needed was to spur her into taking Mercury down to 0% Aura - due to her tendency to launch into an entire punching spree - and keep from taking her out of the match by keeping her Aura above 15%. Since the colosseum's computer system was infected with the Black Queen virus, allowing Cinder to hack into it, I believe that she could've hacked the display board to not show her Aura meter going below 16%, so even if Mercury accidentally reduced her Aura too far for her to continue the match, no one in the colosseum would know because they're relying on the display board to tell them how much Aura the competitors have left.