Elliot I

Elliot was sitting in the Eolian with his friends from the University while subtle music was pouring off the nearby stage. He was in the gallery section stationed where he and his four friends can enjoy a round table alone.

"So Elliot, you're telling me you make all of your extra money from doing magic shows? I've never heard about mundane magic before...." one burly man asked, scratching his already balding head in confusion.

*smack*

"You idiot, how could you not have heard of stage magicians? They're the performers that saw women in half....they're not common but enough so that you should have heard of the art..." a contrastly slimmer man said, the bags under his eyes showing how dedicated to good grades the boy was.

"Can you show us something you've been working on?..." asked the final friend of Elliot, a blonde-headed boy that was naturally curious but quiet by nature.

Elliot nodded with a smile before taking a sip from his cup...after setting the glass down, Elliot looked around seruptisiosly, still wary from his beating last time.

"Gotta be sure no religious people are around, otherwise I might call the name of blood on their @sses...." Elliot grinned, thinking of getting revenge on those who've beaten him in the name of devil magic.

"Pff..."

*laughter*

The boys laughed heartily, but their noisy behavior came to a stop when they saw Elliot take out a deck of personally crafted playing cards from his hands.

"Pay attention gentlemen, I'm gonna show you magic, unlike anything we've studied at the University. If you can tell me how I do this trick, I'll even pay for your tuition next semester..." Elliot was just that confident.

Greed and happiness flashed in his friend's eyes as they leaned forward, not making a sound. Their eyes laser-focused on the cards in his hands..

"Alright, all card tricks performed by magicians can be summed up in one word....control."

Elliot slid his hand in a wide arch from left to right, the stack of cards fanned out perfectly over the wooden table. Then, after lifting up the right-most card slightly with one finger, Elliot slowly raked his finger back left, causing all the laid-out cards to turn over showing their faces.

The three friends had a fire in their eyes, but they didn't interrupt. They were waiting for the 'trick', not the display of hand control or finesse.

"For this trick, I need you to pick a number card. It can be any in the stack, take your time..."

The three looked at each other for a bit, but the blonde-headed boy took the initiative to take out a three of hearts from the laid-out cards.

"Excellent. Now, take this pen and each of you should sign your name on the card. Yes, just like that now put it back into this stack and watch closely..."

Elliot took the card and in front of their eyes, put it into the middle of the deck before shuffling thoroughly. After which he took time to roll up his sleeves and flare his hands around so that his friends didn't accuse him of taking the card out of the deck.

"Now, I will teach each of you how to summon the card you've signed to the top. Watch..."

Elliot brought his right hand above the deck and simply snapped his fingers once...

*snap*

Then, in the skeptical eyes of his friends, turned over the top-most-card, displaying the three of hearts with their signatures on the face.

"Now I can see you're all skeptical, so let's try it like this. Here, I'm going to put this card in the middle of the deck and shuffle it in front of your eyes. Then here, I'm going to show you that it's not the top card and not the bottom see?.....alright, here are my hands and rolled-up sleeves, no sleight of hand..."

He then brought his right hand over the face-down deck once again and snapped...

*snap*

"With the click of the fingers, the ambitious card raises to the top ready to amaze..."

Then, the card each of the three knew not to be the card they signed as they were shown the card on top, turned out to be the card they signed anyways.

*gasp*

"Haha, I got no freaken idea how you did that.....I'm not sure I could do that with real magic..."

The blonde-headed boy thought for a while and could only sigh..." do you know the name of the cards?..." the boy asked jokingly before the group laughed out loud.