Real Assets and Flaws
Rated T for violence, blood, and minor sexual themes.
A/N (Feel Free to Skip): So I had a brainwave. The avatar has the highest caps (bar his/her children) for whatever the asset is. I just decided to make that asset even more of an asset; and, thusly, the flaw even more of a flaw.
I hope you're familiar with Southtown. I tried to keep it fresh each time.
All Avatar's are the default appearance unless specified otherwise.
Asset: HP; Flaw: Luck; the Default
"Oh my gods," Lissa exclaimed with genuine concern. "Let me heal you! You're going to die!"
Robin just looked confused. "Huh?"
"You're not hurt?" Lissa asked: the proverbial wind taken out of her sails momentarily. "Nevermind, of course you are! That axe went straight into your torso! Get over here so I can let you not die!"
"What?" Robin looked down. "Is it normal for people to have twelve ribs on each side? I don't remember."
Lissa stopped probing the wound, and determining the best location to start the healing magic, to look at Robin in shock. "Does… does this hurt?" Lissa asked as she tentatively prodded an open, and profusely bleeding, wound with her fingers.
She got no reaction so she tried again.
And again.
"Robin!" Lissa shouted.
His attention was brought from the flow of the battle back to where Lissa was kneeling with her head at his abdomen, and her entire hand was unable to be seen: Robin's skin made for a good barrier. "What?"
"Does - this - hurt?" she asked as she prodded some squishy organ inside Robin's sternum.
"No, should it?"
"Yes!" Lissa exclaimed. The amnesia with an immunity to pain, and hopefully bleeding out, was grating on Lissa's nerves.
Robin gave a noncommittal grunt before he diverted his attention back to the battle; Lissa started working the healing magic.
"Seriously, you would think that he would be able to feel pain. I mean, how not normal is that? He's going to get himself killed someday," Lissa grumbled; she pulled her hand out of his chest to ensure that it wasn't sealed in by her healing magic.
"Lissa?" Robin asked.
"Yeah…" Lissa asked tentatively.
"There's a thunder tome primed and aimed at us."
Lissa looked up from a now mostly closed cavity. "He's too far away. It won't reach us before the aim gives out."
The mage was still obviously pooling mana.
Seeing Robin's skeptical expression Lissa continued. "It probably won't stop him from trying though; but, he definitely can't hit us."
"Thunder!" they heard distantly. The spell raced towards them before it careened towards a nearby building.
"See!" Lissa said confidently. "Lightning magic is always the least accurate form of combat magic."
The thunder spell was bouncing around between buildings in an inconceivable pattern. "You're probably right," Robin said: trying to believe her words. Still, he had a gut instinct to get to cover.
The thunder spell ricocheted of one last building before it leaped and dissipated into the river running through Southtown. He felt himself decompress, and his instincts calmed down ever so slightly.
"You're finished!" Chrom had taken care of the mage that had launched the magic in the first place. There was no need to worry. But still… even with the danger cleared his hair bristled and stood on its ends.
'Danger. I can almost taste it' Robin thought grimly; the metallic taste on his mouth did nothing to assuage his fears.
"Ro-" his hearing crackled with danger as he filtered out what Lissa was saying. "-'mon." His spine bristled with electricity. His surprisingly accurate insight as a tactician told him that danger was behind him!
He whirled around to see what was there- nothing.
'Maybe it's just post battle nerves,' Robin looked down at his, involuntarily, trembling hands. A spark, just a spark, flitted over his palm like a fairy.
'Aw Hell."
The remainder of the spell crashed into him: a literal lightning bolt. His recently healed upper body was blasted open with the sheer concussive force, and the spell short circuited his brain. His vision spun with movement, his ears brought a dull ringing to the forefront of his mind, before his vision turned black.
One thought came to mind. 'I've lived through worse.'
Asset: Magic; Flaw: Skill
"Wait- you know magic?" Chrom asked.
"I-I think so?" His instincts were telling himself yes, but a feeling of dread came when he thought of casting the spell around Chrom.
"You think so?" Chrom asked skeptically. "Perhaps I'll just take a few steps back for the time being." That sounded like a great idea to Robin. Get Chrom as far away as possible.
"Perhaps a few more steps back, just to be safe?" Robin offered weakly.
Chrom looked even more doubtful, but followed the request regardless. He slowly walked backwards.
His foot fell onto the pavement. 'There,' Robin thought in relief; his instincts told him that he should live.
Maybe.
Robin opened his tome to a page with magical letters. He could read it: a poem, one crying for devastation. He knew: he knew the letters were a shortcut so he wouldn't have to sing a hymn mid-battle; he knew that he could sing it; he knew that singing the verse would call upon a more devastating spell.
'That sounds appealing,' Robin thought as his instincts were crying against the action. 'Aw hell. Every mage has a crazy side.'
He began pooling his mana, and preparing to recite the hymn. 'I hope my voice sounds decent…'
"Hear me, host of heaven, I call upon your souce
Temper my heart, lead this song to its destined course"
His instincts quieted down seeing as Robin would not surrender so easily. The benefits to signing magic was easy to see: the mana was pooling from the world around him rather from inside. The mana he gathered earlier was rendered useless; the sheer energy gathering around him was titanic.
And he had yet to finish.
"I would give my life, to put end to strife
I would give my soul, Gods, let thunder roll"
Robin eyed the bandits Frederick was keeping busy. He had time: time to sing another couplet and turn this thunder into Elthunder. His instincts stopped him: he was having difficulty keeping the mana gathered around him regardless.
'Every mage is a little crazy,' Robin thought with a power hungry grin; but, he didn't sing another verse. 'Call it a gut impulse, but I feel like a wind spell would be a little overkill...'
"Thunder!"
"Wow, Robin! Lissa said sarcastically. "Magic, magic, and more magic. Is there anything you can't do?"
Robin tried his best to look guilty, but it was a little hard with Lissa looking like: 'That. There's no other way to describe it.'
"Oh, wait! I know! You can't not zap the next town over!" Lissa exclaimed.
Her hair stood up completely straight up, and she looked rather like a dandelion. Her enraged expression looked rather cute when she looked like she was trying to go to a costume party, not like she just stepped off a battlefield.
"In my defense, I was thinking of casting Elthunder."
Frederick was somehow still pristine. "I would advise against that. Milord and Milady would be in danger, and possibly Lady Emmeryn as well."
"Gods, was that really just a thunder spell?" Chrom asked; Robin struggled not to laugh as he looked at Chrom.
'He looks… Blue hair isn't conducive to… Is the hair to the side of his head really that much…'
He couldn't help it anymore; he laughed.
Naga must've had mercy on Robin; he was safe: Frederick cracked the semblances of a smile.
Asset: Defense; Flaw: Magic; Body: The really big one (body 3)
"Here, give me your hand," Chrom requested with an easy smile.
'Gods,' Chrom thought as he struggled to lift the man to his feet. 'He's huge.'
The man was head and shoulders taller than Chrom; Frederick chose to remain mounted: else the stranger look down on him.
He was exceptionally well built Chrom noted. 'You could open bottles on his abs; you could keep books on top of his pectorals; he could stop Frederick's lance with his arm; he could stand steady in a hurricane…' A light blush spread across Chrom's face.
"-My name is Robin," he said in shock.
'The name of a delicate bird that heralds change, for a man that makes walls feel inadequate. Funny, but I suppose that it would be difficult to think of a newborn babe as this titan.'
"Chrom- look!"
"I'm looking…" Chrom said absentmindedly.
'Gods, did I just say that out loud?!'
"Then why didn't you mention anything?" Lissa demanded.
"Er- right. Looking at the town."
'Not at this gorgeous man.' Chrom thought as a blush spread across his face faster than a wildfire.
"Wait - you know magic?" Chrom asked as he saw Robin pull out a tome.
"I can best any mage with a tome," the tactician said in a deep voice filled with amusement.
'He didn't say he knew magic, and the humor in his voice means something else,' Chrom noted.
Robin let the blow from the barbarian glance off of his skin; he brought the spine of the tome hard enough on the man's head that Chrom heard a snap from the ruffian's skull.
'By the gods… His skin just deflected an axe! What is this man?'
The mage, that had been approaching, looked quite apprehensive to approach the giant amnesiac. "Would you like me to prove it to you?"
"Y-yeah…" 'He literally meant the tome itself!'
Robin squared his legs; he threw the tome at the mage who could do nothing but watch the projectile draw closer: it ultimately sunk into his face (with a satisfying thunk) which knocked the spellcaster out cold.
"So, how was that?" Robin asked with a smirk (thouh what he was smirking at, Chrom couldn't tell).
"Don't people usually wait until the tome is dead before they throw their tome. A "last resort" kind of thing?" Chrom asked.
"Well, I have a feeling that the tome is-"
Chrom cut in. "Robin, look out!"
A hand axe soared through the air: aimed directly at Robin. The tactician turned almost lethargically, and before he could react the projectile had impacted his stomach.
"Robin, are you… alright?" He was entirely unscathed.
As Robin dashed off to attack the leader, Chrom only had one thought: 'I need to get used to weapons bouncing off his abs,' before he chased after Robin to help take down the cackling ruffian.
Asset: Strength; Flaw: HP; Assume a frailer build
"Here, give me your hand."
Chrom extended his hand, which the man tentatively grasped. They both tugged; one to pull someone else to his feet, and one to pull himself up to eye level.
The world spun; the ground quickly approached, and Chrom landed, with a dull thump, on top of the very stranger he tried to pull up.
'My hand… why does it hurt so much?' Chrom asked himself, before, becoming aware of the situation, he leaped off the stranger like he was made of fire.
'Gods, that's embarrassing.' Lissa's giggling fit, and Frederick with his lance ready to spear the white haired man didn't help matters at all.
"I'm so sorry. Gods, I don't even know what happened," Chrom frantically apologized as the man got up of his own accord.
It was completely true: Chrom didn't have any clue to what happened. One moment he was gripping his hand ready to pull him up; the next, he was on top of a stranger with an aching hand. He must've squared his feet wrong: because there was no way a slim, yet still fit, man could have the strength to drag him down.
He glanced at his hand; red fingerprints shone like beacons against his white skin. They would obviously become hindering bruises in short order. 'I'll have Lissa wave her staff later.'
Chrom directed his attention towards the man in front of him. It was clear he wanted to say something along the lines of 'thank you', but after Chrom fell on top of him the words would seem insincere, or even sarcastic, to the party of three: so he dithered, and an awkward silence fell over them.
Nearly a minute passed in this uncomfortable atmosphere before the white haired man looked like he'd received a revelation. He extended his hand once more, to Chrom's confusion, and said, "My name is Robin. It's good to meet you."
Chrom, altogether too grateful to break the silent reverie, eagerly took the offered hand. 'Ow.' "My name is Chrom, and this is Lissa," he said gesturing to the teenage girl (currently bobbing up and down by shifting her weight from her toes to her heels, then back again). "And the grumpy looking one is Frederick." Chrom took his hand back and nursed it as subtly as he could. 'Grip like iron.'
Robin- with a new name to call him by other than, "that stranger I just fell on top of"- gave a gentle smile, before it faded into a frown. "Do any of you have a clue to where I am…" he looked sheepish for a moment. "Or who I am?"
'Gods, why is he fighting with a sword?' Chrom thought as he desperately raced to reach the tactician. "Why didn't he just stick with the spellbook that I saw him use earlier?" Chrom asked himself: words unbidden slipping out of his mouth in his worry.
Robin's slim build was fit, but it wasn't suited for swordfighting! He just had to reach him before that recklessness got him killed. He really needed a battlefield tactician, and keeping the white haired amnesiac seemed the best way to accomplish that.
And he generally liked the man: that held a much more dominant sway in Chrom's mind than abilities any day.
"Time to tip the scales!" Robin was making quips too! He should be more focused on getting out of there and leave the heavy fighting to the warriors, like Frederick. At least now he could locate the man in these damn stalls easier.
A grunt, distinctly from Robin's voice, was heard by the blue haired lord. 'Oh gods, no.' The stand that Chrom was making a mad dash past splintered and exploded in a mess of produce and woodchips. The blast threw Chrom back onto the cobblestone street alongside another robed body.
Through his hazy vision he could somehow make out the hazy outline of someone, armed, scampering over the wreckage of the cart. Chrom tried his best to stir himself to his feet: to give himself a fighting chance, but his muscles - strafed with splinters and the flesh of fruit - refused to listen. The distance he managed to pull himself up was lost as he fell against the street with a resounding, at least to him, thump.
The outline came into focus. 'A-A bronze sword. Such a dignified weapon for a prince to die on…'
"Here, give me your hand," came a voice which soothed all of Chrom's fears despite its mocking tone.
Chrom assessed the state of his hand; it looked better off than the rest of him. He actually did bother to get Lissa to heal the bruising (much to her amusement).
He weakly offered his trembling hand to Robin; the iron grip disappeared, and was replaced with a gentle hold as Chrom was slowly pulled to his feet.
He could ask questions later: Frederick was routing the last of the brigands, and Robin threw one of Chrom's arms around his shoulders: slowly leading him to Lissa.
Asset: Skill; Flaw: Strength and Magic (Just roll with it)
A pair of eyes snapped open: the owner of the hazel colored pair quickly took in the surroundings: a lush and peaceful meadow, a calm and soothing breeze (which had none of the described effect), long grass that was untamed.
Curiously enough, he saw two people. Before they could respond he was on his feet looking them in the eye.
The blue haired man blinked slowly. He glanced down at the grass that retained the impression from the man sleeping there, to the very same man that stood up in less than a second, "Hello, my name is Chrom? Might I know yours?"
Rough calluses lined the inside of Chrom's hands; the inverse side of the first knuckle had thicker calluses than the rest of his hands, bar where the palm of his hand met wrist. His right hand had significantly more than the left. 'He wields a broadsword,' Robin deduced, and his theory was backed by the sword resting at Chrom's hip.
The blonde haired woman in her late teens was a cleric: a relatively new one. The knight behind her was old and experienced; he was likely trained since twelve years of age, and had passed his prime only a few years ago.
Facts and deductions similar to that flooded the man's mind as he soaked in everything about the world around him. A nearby tree with initials carved inside a heart sent dozens of names starting with the respective letters flooding through his mind. The state and color of the grass he was standing on and in the area nearby gave him suggestions for what season it was, and the rainfall for prior seasons. The open skies, and the gray streaks streaming down clouds several miles away told him a storm recently passed.
But there was something missing. Something big that ate at him. Something that the man he basically ignored asked of him. Easily recalling the query, he found himself dismayed.
He couldn't give his name, he couldn't remember his name; he couldn't remember names; he couldn't remember anything.
"I-I don't remember my name," he said
Chrom took it in stride, and accepted that reason for why it took so long to get a response. "I see. Why don't you come with us to the nearest town and we'll sort it out."
Even without his unreasonable skills of perception, it would be impossible to miss Frederick's disapproving glower.
More intelligent than the average bandit
Picked up magic over the axe to keep himself off the frontlines
Slightly craven
Wind magic - Bad natural accuracy
Favors his left side over the right
Aims at the head - Amateur mistake
Inexperienced - Poor reactions, little intent to kill
Despite all of the headaches and useless knowledge that Robin's deduction typically provided, it was quite the asset on a battlefield.
He rushed at the mage's right side: running as low to the ground as possible. There were a few precious seconds of hesitation before the mage shot a wind spell at Robin.
It was a futile act. He was too late in firing, and Robin was too close and too close to the ground to hit him. The burst of wind magic harmlessly dissipated against the cobblestone pavement.
'Only a few feet away,' Robin thought grimly as he pulled out his sword.
The mage didn't even have time to respond as Robin leaped up and slashed at his throat; a spout of blood erupted from his mouth as the spellcaster collapsed to the ground… still alive.
'I-I couldn't even give him a clean death,' Robin thought in shame.
Could survive with medical attention
Will live for several more minutes
The normal warrior would accept that the enemy was too far gone, and drive their sword through his foe's heart. But Robin could tell that he could live.
'It-It has to be done. He picked the wrong side. I cut his throat to begin with. I must finish it.'
With a heavy heart, Robin's sword found another sheath.
'People can change, and perhaps he could've. But he cast his lot the wrong way.' Robin thought.
But deep down he knew that it was all a justification. Deep down he knew that the shame of killing another human being would never leave him.
But from deep within, and from the same way that Robin knew his name, he heard sage advice from someone he'd forgotten.
Regret and remorse for taking a life is what dictates the difference between a warrior and berserker, a defender and a murderer.
Asset: Resistance; Flaw: Strength
'I followed them, but how am I supposed to help?' Robin thought. He had a sword he could barely hold, and a spellbook which he couldn't remember how to use.
Footsteps from behind broke him from his musings. He turned around to see a robed mage gripping a spellbook staring him down; he was clearly laughing with his eyes: the sight of Robin trying to hold a sword was amusing.
'At least he's professional enough to not taunt me,' Robin thought as he tried to find light in the situation.
"Fire!" the spellcaster shouted. 'So that's how you cast a spell…' Some instinct told him not to worry about the spell coming towards him. He pulled out his spellbook, and he quickly decided that his instincts were wrong.
That fireball was terrifying.
He briefly considered dropping to the ground; but, he decided against it: the conflagration was nearly as tall as him, and it didn't even need to touch him to harm him.
Standing like a statue in a moment of panic wouldn't help him, no matter how much he thought.
'Too late,' Robin realized. He was dead, and-
The fireball dissipated against his skin.
'Huh?' Robin thought with overbearing intellect and understanding of the situation at hand.
"Huh?" the opposing mage said as he scratched the back of his head.
Robin smiled; he opened the spellbook in his hands. "Thunder!"
The runes glowed; a ball of crackling electricity was formed.
It flew at an entirely unacceptable rate… towards the sky. It was like a helium balloon with just enough gas to barely float upward.
The opposing mage just let out a loud derisive laugh that grated on Robin's nerves.
His anger flared. 'I will not be laughed at!'
With an instinct he didn't know he possessed (because it was, really, quite stupid), he jumped up and hit the ball of thunder with his fist.
It sparked to life with vengeance. Instantly, the opposing mage was writhing as electricity laced up and down his spine.
He collapsed, lifeless, onto the pavement; Robin was unharmed by touching his own spell: not that he was complaining.
'Serves you right for laughing.'
A/N: I apologize for not having an asset of luck. It's halfway written, but I chose not to include it. The flaw was skill, and it basically turned into the scene from the Phantom Menace where Jar Jar accidentally destroys and army. I don't particularly regret not including it.
Speed just doesn't work out so well as an interesting asset or flaw either.
Tell me what you thought, and which one was your favorite (if any). If you hated it be sure to tell me. I'm always up for criticism no matter the type.
Thanks for reading.