Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-26130256-20170711055926/@comment-26130256-20170713032200

While the cabbie's taste in music was pretty good, she wasn't much of a conversationalist, which left Azulius half an hour of premium brooding time. Brooding was the match-three game on the Scroll of human emotions:  simple, repetitive, and unproductive, but sometimes there was literally nothing else to be doing. Also, Edom wasn't a magician, so his one deck of cards was buried in his suitcase.

Being raised in a Mob family, Azzie's life lessons were decidedly different than most children. While his father Sienna taught him loyalty and quiet, and Aunt Galatea taught him how to talk to--and manipulate--people, his uncle Trigo loved to ramble about the philosophical elements of fighting, when he wasn't demonstrating the practical elements. One of the early lessons that stuck with him concerned strengths and weaknesses. Everyone in the world, "The Tornado" said, had some sort of strong suit and weak suit. Even those who boasted being "well-rounded" were weak in the sense that they had no strengths of their own to play to.

The essence of combat, and life, was first to determine one's own strengths and weaknesses, and learn how to emphasize the former and avoid the latter. Once you understood yourself, the second task was to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents, and learn to exploit the latter while minimizing the effects of the former.

When Azulius had a few more years, he was allowed to watch and train a little at the family combat studios, where Trigo's lesson was reinforced further. He had watched soldati with larger weapons, like greatswords and polearms,  completely demolish groups of opponents in an open space, yet become almost powerless in cramped hallways where they lacked room to swing. Conversely, faster fighters with lighter weapons could harry those greatweapons by darting inside their range, striking, then retreating. But against a more defensive style, they bounced off like rain off a tent. On the battlefield, lives could be saved or lost by understanding strengths and weaknesses.

Bitterly, Azzie knew exactly what his weakness was:  physical strength. He could barely do two pull-ups without boosting himself with Aura, while students like Nora freaking Valkyrie could bench press 500 pounds and still carry a conversation! Whenever the magician entered a gym, it felt like he put in twice the effort of the others for half the gains. His brass knuckles, which would have given another Huntsman in training bone-shattering force, barely increased his punching power to "stunning". And numerous times in his career, this weakness had come very close to getting him, or someone else on his side, killed or maimed.

He had learned to compensate, to an extent. Some decent marksmanship, plus the full-auto power of Roaring Moxie kept a lot of enemies from getting too close, while his reflexes and talent for bluffing could unbalance a foe long enough to land a few lucky hits. And that was without mentioning the incredible utility he had wrung out of his illusion Semblance. But compensating for a weakness was not the same as not having a weakness, and deep down, Azulius knew he was one grapple, fistfight, or cliff face from cashing in his chips. And so, here he was, in a cab, driving to one of the most rigorous training facilities on Remnant, hoping to turn his subpar hand-to-hand skills into something remotely worth being proud of.

That didn't explain his disguise, however. During his time in Vale, the young Cardamom had made numerous acquaintances with Flagg Institute operatives, both from cooperation and competition. Fighting alongside them, it was hard not to feel a little overshadowed by their cybernetic enhancements and superior quality equipment. On the off chance they were back home in the Sahale, Azzie didn't want his friends to see the frankly absurd lengths he was going to correct his deformities, and he especially didn't want them to go easy (or hard) on him because they knew him personally. Edom Chartreuse didn't have that problem. Edom Chartreuse would recieve the same respect (or lack therof) that every other temporary student got, until he proved himself worthy of something better. And on a strictly personal note, it had been a very long time since Azulius had participated in a long con, and trying to be someone else for a few weeks would help scratch that itch.

To help calm down, Edom closed his eyes and breathed deeply, remembering the advice of Rusty Ryan, one of the master grifters behind the Bellagio job: "You look down, they know you're lying and up, they know you don't know the truth. Don't use seven words when four will do. Don't shift your weight, look always at your mark but don't stare, be specific but not memorable, be funny but don't make him laugh. He's got to like you then forget you the moment you've left his side. And for God's sake, whatever you do, don't, under any circumstances..."

"We're here," the cabbie snapped him out of his thoughts as she shifted into park. "Welcome to the Flagg Institute.  That will be 36 Lien, please."

"Oh, thank you," Edom recovered and handed her two twenties. "Keep the change.  Thanks for having some decent music, by the way, it's a rarity in cab drivers these days."

Once the cab had driven off, Ed turned towards the imposing Flagg campus. It was far too late to turn back. He had already entered a foreign country under a false alias, set a rocket locker full of other questionably-legal goodies on standby, and the tuition fees for the class were non-refundable. All roads led forward. Now he just needed to find the admissions desk...