Craw (krȯ) [noun] - Someone born on a night where the dominating star in the sky is that of the Crab. Of the twelve celestial-borne members, Craw's are the only ones incapable of performing magic.
In a giant stone tower, on the hill of a large island on a starry night, there was a poor, weak, and miserable young man who was staring straight into the glimmering eyes of a huge hairy beast. Unromantically, this beast was about to punch a hole through his chest, how I wish with all my heart at this moment, that I was the hairy beast.
The beastly man's eyes began to glow the orange hue of a sunset, and the taste of ginger filled my mouth. He clenched his fist, and as magic energy began to flow through his body, his muscles swelled, and I could immediately identify what type of mage he was. Enhancement magic, he's only used physical enhancement to make himself faster and stronger. Meaning that he either wasn't skilled enough to use elemental protections, or he knows I'm a Craw.
Before I had any time to test my theories he'd started to briefly enter a boxing position; tapping his feet against the stone floor before launching at me with a quick right jab. His right foot stepped forward as his first started towards me, but I was able to back up a step and avoid it quickly. I immediately pulled my elbows together into a guarding position as I ducked down expecting him to follow up with a punch at speed faster than I could anticipate. I swept my left foot forward and towards the left at the same time praying deep inside me that I wouldn't die to a man with enough visible chest hair to make a rug. I felt his foot slide over mine at supersonic speed as gusts from his punch blew off the hood of the dark black robe I was wearing.
"Perfect!" I exclaimed as I got into a boxing stance while watching him fly forward towards the floor.
Just then a voice rang in my head. "Hey, bean-boy, Any sign of the stone over there?"
I smiled. Even though my sister would pick on me a lot, her voice always made me smile. She was the only person I could trust. Ever since she was cursed and bound to my soul, we became even closer, mostly because we could communicate just by thought. Of course, this also led to issues with boundaries — issues like the beansprout incident.
"Is the Philosophers stone a big man with a long mane coming out his nose and chest? If so it's currently hurtling towards the ground. Also for the last time, let the bean thing go! It was just one beansprout, and any man who is true to his own heart would have done what I did. It's a matter of soul, Winter!" I retorted playfully in my head before returning my focus to the fight with Mr. Hairball.
Hairball fell into a roll before acrobatically pushing himself to his feet with his hands, entering a somersault. He was well built and tall, wearing a yellow striped Magisters cloak and pants. Most notably, of course, was his hairiness. His eyebrows, his beard, mustache, and nose hairs were all so bushy that at first I nearly mistook him for a beastman. The worst feature, however, was the star on his Magister uniform, it meant that he was a guard captain at this fortress. Something I knew I couldn't handle. Hairball began to glow a bright yellow-orange as he pushed off his feet faster than I could see, instinctively I chose to dodge right which barely saved my life as his knuckles tore into my left shoulder.
There was an intense shock of pain and then numbness. I clenched my teeth and screamed as my eyes began to water, and in giving my arm a brief look, I could tell he knocked my shoulder out of its socket. I didn't have much time to regain composure as he spun around to do a roundhouse kick aimed towards my head. I barely managed to dodge it in time, but the force from the kick caused me to lose balance and fall alongside the sound of a loud crash as he crushed a nearby wall. I rolled backward as fast as I could to avoid another stomp which cracked to stone beneath his foot and caused the entire tower to shake.
Clumsily, I staggered to my feet and dashed as fast as I could down the corridor the light from the torches in the hall flickering as I sprinted, diving into the closest connected room. It so happened to be the room where I was found at first by Mr. Hairball. While searching for the location of the Philosophers Stone I had trashed his room completely, I toppled all his bookshelves, and his desk became littered with scattered papers. I grabbed a stack of random documents with my healthy arm and immediately threw them towards the doorway while sprinting forward. Loud, hairy footsteps shook the hall as Hairball entered the door just as the papers flew toward his face.
"Rain. Truly, no man has the heart or soul you have to do - um those things to a beansprout; you are truly special." My sister responded after the life-threatening seconds that felt like hours.
I smiled again as she said my name. She's probably the only person who says it nicely, even when being sarcastic. "The sarcasm in your voice is lovely sis, I thought that this guard outmatches me, but you've given me a burst of power, I'm about to surpass my limit and unleash a new type of magic as the chosen one!" I retorted, as the hairy guard recoiled from the stack of papers and thrust his fist just past my shoulder into the cobblestone and wood doorframe behind me, trapping his arm as the stone broke around his fist. I grabbed a dagger hoisted on my waist and thrust it towards his throat, but the blade broke on his dangling beard in synchronization with my heart.
His hair was harder than tempered steel. How in the world is something like this possible? Iron-beard? The hard hairy harbinger of death? Hairball felt like a very inappropriate nickname at this moment. He grinned and against my expectation of seeing hairy teeth he showed a gruesome toothless smile with no tongue present in his mouth.
That's why he's been so quiet and hasn't called for any other guards, I thought. They assigned him to his position because why would he even need support? He's strong enough to kill me with a single punch. My blood began to run cold; he's so strong that no one needs to support him, and I'm so weak. My chest felt tight, and my head started to feel foggy.
"The stone? What about the stone?" Winter responded becoming more impatient.
Looking at Hairballs grinning gums snapped me into an alarmed state. The weight of my current situation dawned on me, and I began to panic. We need to escape now, this mission is too much for us, but if we run now this magister captain will know my face. The task assigned was a Cherub rank 1, but this was easily Aegis rank 2, not to mention master Grant said this was a bandit camp at first. The moment I saw the fortress, I should have turned around, especially since this is a government fortress.
The Magisters here are all loyal to the matriarchy of the Kingdom of Keys. Meaning that at best we'll be outlaws after having our faces exposed, and at worse, they'll execute us for treason. Missions like this require someone far above our abilities, someone worthless like me could never do this.
My mind was racing, as heartbreak and anger overwhelmed my thoughts. The only mercenary sect in the entire city that would hire a Craw and they would instead send me to my death after a whole year of hard work. There's no place for me in this world; All I do is ruin the lives of everyone around me, I should-
"Brother?" Winter's spoke in a concerned tone. She snapped me back to reality. If I die, she dies, I will never let that happen. I smiled back grimly at Hairball before answering my sister with my thoughts.
"I found a journal documenting recent transfers of magic materials. Three saint warriors in the Chapel guard the Philosophers stone with legendary magic weapons! On top of it, I'm fighting a man whose nose hairs are daggers capable-" my inner voice quivered in my head as I gradually began to cycle into panic mode again.
Cutting me off winter spoke: "Shh...Don't worry. You can do this. I'm on my way.... stay strong... we don't die here. "
She's right. We're cockroaches. We're weeds. So what if nobody wants us! So what if we don't belong! It's a lot harder than that to get rid of me! Determination began to fill my body as Hairball grabbed my shoulders causing me to grimace in pain. I didn't want to give in and scream though, so I bit down on my lips. I don't want to give him any satisfaction.
He brought me down onto his knee, and I felt all of the motivation I built up crumble as I heard the cracking noise of my ribs breaking. I gasped for air, and quickly pushed myself back as fast as I could. He wasn't going to let me go.
Showing those grotesque red and blue rotting gums as he dashed forward while smiling. That smile said everything that he couldn't. He was filled with pleasure as he anticipated the sensation of crushing my body with the fist that launched straight towards my face.
Not yet, I thought, I have to do something, he has to have a weakness. I remembered he hadn't used elemental protection and I grabbed a nearby torch in one last attempt to survive and threw it straight at him. He was moving too fast to dodge, and then a fire started, both in my heart and on his beard. His beard, his nose hairs, his chest hair, every part of his body was immolated in one instant as his fearsome punch stopped dead in front of my face.
I fell backward and watched the do-it-yourself funeral pyre as he moaned out sounds as close to a scream as he was capable of creating. He knew I couldn't use magic, so why bother to protect against elements I couldn't manipulate? He was strong, but he was an idiot and treated me like a toy. This whole hallway was lit with fire hazards. He didn't even roll to stop the fire covering him. He just fell and screamed, and Mr. Hairball became Mr. Fireball.
Suddenly, a black cat dashed on top of me and began to lick my cheek with her rough tongue. I felt a slight twinge of guilt looking at Winter's cat form. While her voice reminded me of home and made me feel safe, her appearance as a cat told me of every mistake I made and how much of a burden I could be. Like me, she used to have caramel tan skin, violet eyes, short dark hair and the family robe handed down from our mother. I missed her appearance because she looked so much like mom.
"Bad news, I brought friends... but after all the noise you two caused with that fight. I'm sure you expected that." Winter spoke dejectedly. I could read the expression on the cat's face and tell she was concerned about my condition just looking at me. "Bro, you're shoulder-."
I grabbed my left shoulder and pushed it back into its socket as my eyes watered in pain. "Is perfectly fine, it'll take more than that to destroy a bean boy!" I smiled at her and rubbed her head. I shouldn't make my older sister worry about me so much I thought, she's lost enough for me as is. The expected party should be here any moment now, I stood up and looked towards the staircase ready to fight.
Disappointingly, against my expectations of one or two guards, the number sounded like fifty as I heard distant shouts and footsteps echo throughout the hall. One was faster than all the rest, and a lean young pale boy quite literally blazed up the staircase. His red robe was accented by flashing embers that were flying off the top of his blond spikey hair and trailing behind his feet with every step he took.
"Captain Bald!" The boy screamed as he saw the burning pyre of the hairy harbinger himself. He turned towards me with what looked like actual flames in his eyes. His skin started to glow red, and the taste of chili peppers began to burn on my tongue. I tried to keep the grin off my face, but hearing that Mr.Hairballs name was Bald, unfortunately, caused me to laugh at him.
The scene must have looked like a psychopath intruded in a fortress, killed the captain and then started laughing at the sorrow of the followers that mourned him. I felt guilty, mainly because I could tell this kid was maybe only 15 years old, two years younger than me. I didn't want to have my face exposed, but I didn't want to kill him. Deciding whether to spare him or not, was a difficult choice that I didn't have the time to make as the kid immediately began to create hand signs with his hands.
"How dare you laugh, you criminal scum! I will have retribution. You will rue this day!" I involuntarily chuckled at the strange word choice while the boy charged forward making fast alternating movements with his fingers into hand signs as his body winded around into what looked like a dance. A small magic circle began to circle his hands as he thrust his fists towards me in unison from a distance. The temperature of the room rose, and the bricks themselves turned red as bouncing snakes of fire bounced the four walls of the corridor blazing straight for me. Winter hissed as the stones became too hot for her to touch and she jumped on my shoulders.
"Need help?" she asked while tilting her head.
"Nah," I smirked. "I may have broken a rib or two, but Emission magic and sigil magic are my favorites, just hold on tight." Winter bore her claws into my back as I focused on the bouncing fire stream. I stood perfectly still and watched as the child prepare another hand sign, from the patterns he was using I could tell what his plan was.
The first spell the kid used was Fire Wave, and it's intended to limit the movement of your opponent by forcing them to focus on the oscillating wave. The second spell was Fire Flood, and it was going to effectively eliminate half of the hallway as an option for me to move, leaving me with minimal space to dodge, and he could use just about any spell to take me out quickly in the limited area remaining.
The privilege of not being able to use magic is that I want it more than any mage alive. I know how to deal with this. I watched the flaming snakes bounce and timed the pattern carefully in my head; counting 1...2...3...4 and 1...2...3...4 in rhythm as Flame Waves always work within a set pattern.
Finally, the first snake came close to me and charged forwards as the flame seared the back of Winter lightly. Ignoring the fire in front of me I dashed forward confident that they wouldn't hit me after I nailed the pattern. The boy was shocked but unmoved as he was about to finish his next spell, and I felt thrilled at the perfect timing of this situation.
The boy's magic circle began to form around his hands as I closed in and reached my right hand forward onto his left-hand interlacing my fingers with his into the last position of the spell's signage. I pushed his right hand away with my left hand and placed my feet in a position to his right so that I could quickly pivot to my left and get behind him. I winked at his shocked and terrified face slyly. He tried to imbue magic into his right hand and punch me with his flaming fist, but the magical energy redirected to my right arm as I pushed his fingers into a different shape and quickly made the pivot behind him and out of the way of his fist.
"Sorry buddy, I'm gonna borrow your spell for a sec!" I smiled as I felt his magic energy flowing through me. I spent a long time teaching myself anti-magic martial arts to be able to master the technique of magic theft. It only works on magic with visible sigils, so emission mages like this are some of the few I can use it on. The sensation as my body vibrates with magic energy, the flow of it from one palm to the other; it's easy to understand why the world idolizes magic so much. I feel like I can almost convince myself I'm not worthless when I use this power. Then I saw the boy's eyes, the fear, the terror and the powerlessness in them. He's just doing what he has to, to survive. Quickly, I jumped back as far as I could and blasted the ground between the boy and me with the Fire Flood. Directly in front of me grew a giant flaming wall that extended from the floor to the ceiling but didn't move towards the boy a little more than three feet.
"He knows us." My sister worriedly mentioned in my head.
"Good. Then the kid knows he should leave me alone!" I responded against my own emotions. I wanted to believe we could find a way around whatever misfortune came from leaving him alive. I don't have confidence in my ability to handle any more right now. The sounds of the rest of the guards started getting even closer, and I looked towards the nearest window and knew what I had to do.
"The murderous fiend is up here! The fool failed to kill me, come quickly!!" The boy shouted after awakening from his shock.
Without hesitation, I grabbed a rope out of my bag tossed it at the black cat and spoke succinctly. "Bite down and hold onto that rope like your life depends on it."I grabbed on end of the rope, smiled at the face of a black cat that I could swear was turning white in terror. Then the poor, weak, and miserable man jumped out the window of the top floor of a five-story high tower on a hill, on a somewhat bright and starry night. Fortunately, there was one nice quirk of the curse on my sister. Despite being bound to my soul and being stuck in the form of a cat; she had all the physical strength of herself when she was human. I had faith that she would not let me fall and die. If not for any reason other than the fact that she would die too.
Holding tightly onto the rope I screamed in my head as I fell to the third story: "Stop the rope now!!" I planned to drop a few floors down and avoid all the guards heading up to the top level. Unfortunately looking into the window of the third story I met eyes with a stunned Magister in a Blue robe. I winked at him and snapped my fingers and pointed at him, and for a brief moment, he blushed before rage filled his eyes and he slashed a sword straight towards me. How unlucky am I that the guards were so slow scaling the tower? I dropped down the rope quickly, but the sword cut the line. It was at this moment something truly magical happened. I began to float in the sky the same way that eggs don't, as they plunge towards the ground inevitably about to explode into a gruesome yolky mess.
My stomach felt like it was going to come out of my nose, but as I looked down and saw a large pile of hay three stories down, I gained hope. I grabbed my second dagger from behind me and stabbed as hard as I could into the stone tower as sparks began to light up the night sky like fireflies descending the tower. It didn't completely slow my fall, and halfway through it, I looked up to see fuzzy darkness descend onto my face like mothers blanket would cover me from all the bad things in life. For a brief instant, I convinced myself that I wasn't going to die horrifically. I'll only break half the bones in my body and lay in a pool of my blood until the guards find me and torture me for the remaining seconds of my life.
Then the fuzzy darkness named Winter spoke: "What the hell happened, Rain!!"
Before we hit the ground, I only managed to gasp out a few miserable words: "Your garbage friends were late to the party!"