The morning sun broke through the wooden boards that were used as makeshift windows, landing on the still sleeping boy who lay flippantly under his blanket. The sounds of footsteps stirred him awake as he groggily raised a wall to block off his oncoming attacker.
"MATTHEW! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT RAISING EARTH IN THIS HOUSE!" A very angry female voice roared on the other side of said wall.
"Just give me 5 more minutes ma" Matthew returned, tossing his head back onto the pillow.
"THAT'S IT" His mother boomed as she bent the wall to her own will, shattering the wall into pieces as she marched in.
Sitting straight up, face laced with the most charming and sympathetic smile that an 8 year old can conjure up, Matthew stared at his mother with a pleading look. "Ma, look, you don't wanna do th-" he managed before he felt a pinching pain on his right ear.
Sitting alone in the living room, Hazel played with her toys. She was imagining that a clay stick man was an all mighty world destroyer alien, and the other stickman that she held in her left hand was a princess. "Gawr, I, Turbooboo, the destroyer of continents, hereby declare you as my bride!" she said, trying to create the voice for Turbooboo. Grabbing the Princess, she tilted it and tried to recreate the effect of fainting on it. "No~ I don't want this~" she moaned. Then, suddenly, from behind her back, she pulled out another stick figure. "HALT! I, MR SHINY SHINER, THE KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR WILL SAVE THIS PRINCESS" she heroically said. But before she could finish, her mother came into the room, dragging Matthew by the ear.
"Ma, please, it was reflex!" Matthew said, trying to quell his mother's anger. "I didn't know it was you!".
"Oh baloney, remember what I told you when you first started using magic? No magic in the house!" His Mother admonished.
Pointing a finger to his sister, Matthew rebuked "Then what about her? Why is she allowed to use them!".
"That's enough from you!" Matthew's mother scolded before giving him a smack on the bum. "Besides, she only uses them to create small toys, not block off their own family!".
Letting out a yelp, Matthew rubbed his red hiney. He was about to mutter something but refrained himself from doing so, as such actions wouldn't go unpunished by his mother.
Sighing, he made his way to the bathroom and washed himself. Getting out of the showers, he put on his clothes and made his way towards his mother who was waiting for him. "Do we really have to do this?" Matthew said with anguish.
"Yes Honey, unless you want to be taken away by the bad men" His mother reprimanded.
Grabbing on to his finger, his mother pricked it and dripped his blood into hollow ball. After dripping blood for a minute or so, his mother grabbed the ball and chanted something into it and the ball started glowing. While the ball was glowing, Matthew felt a massive amount of his strength leave him as he stumbled forward a few steps.
"Urgh..." Matthew groaned as he steadied himself. "This sucks!"
"I know it does, but what will people think if they find out that you raise more than one earth structure at a time?" His mother said, gently rubbing his back. "They'll take you away from me..."
Annoyed but understanding, Matthew stayed there a while until his mother pushed him off and pushed him again, through the door.
"You better get going now, careful on your way to school!" His mother cooed from behind.
"I will Ma".
. . .
Wearing a thick brown shirt and blue plants that were tied at the ankles to make sure they weren't loose, Matthew looked like a common beggar. Walking down the streets, he often got weird looks and snarky comments about how he looked. He often wished that he could use his full power and prove these people wrong but he respected his mother's word, so he just let the comments go.
Arriving at school, he instantly got pushed into a wall and beat up. "A stupid earth mage like you should stay on the streets" A boy with spikey yellow hair jeered.
Keeping his head down, Matthew replied to the mean comment by focusing his mana into his foot and summoned up a blunt earthen spike. He propelled the spike up towards the boy and the boy hurled up his breakfast as a result.
"Y-y-y-y-y-you..." He wheezed and stammered like a kid with tourettes.
"The teacher's say no violence on school grounds you know" Matthew lectured.
Walking off to get to class, he was often pushed or hit from random directions, but unless it was a direct confrontation he always let them go. For an 8 year old he had an extreme amount of patience.
Arriving to class, he opened the door and as he did, all sound went null. The gazes he got from even existing would make some drop out of school, but Matthew just sighed and walked towards his desk. On his way to his desk, a boy stuck his leg out to try an trip Matthew, but Matthew saw this coming from a mile away and politely asked the boy to move his leg. Ticked off, the boy did so reluctantly as the teacher stared at him.
Clearing his throat, the Teacher who went by the name of Mr. Jerry started the lesson.
The lesson for today would be a history lesson about the history of the lands that they lived in.
"I'm pretty sure that all of us know the name of the continent that we were born in" Mr. Jerry said sarcastically. "You over there in the green sweater, tell us which is blatantly obvious".
Standing up from her seat, a girl with long blonde pigtails and wearing a green sweater nervously answered. "W-we live in the conti-continent of E-Ezune" She stuttered.
"Yes, now that wasn't so hard was it El...Ella? Ellie...El..." Mr. Jerry said, trying to remember the student's name.
Looking slightly hurt, she displayed a sympathetic smile and corrected the teacher. "It's Eliza Sir".
"I knew that!" Jerry said, shouting at her for embarrassing him.
"Ahem, now, onwards with the lesson. Our grand continent used to be split up into 4 nations: the Human Kingdom, the Elven Kingdom, the Beast Kingdom and the Dark-lands. The 4 nations were always in strife, constantly at war with each other over land and resources, until one day, the Demon King surfaced and waged war on the entire world. For 20 years, the world was in chaos and the demonic armies swept the land, plundering everything in their way, until one day, 4 Grand Mages rose up to the challenge and faced the Demon King. After they defeated the Demon King, the 4 Mages would go down in history as the uniters of the continent. Soon after though, one of the 4 grand mages betrayed the rest, and as you all may know, we have a descendent of the said person in this very room right now..." Mr. Jerry said, pointing accursedly at Matthew who rolled his eyes and turned towards the window, ignoring the bullsh*t that was happening.
As Mr. Jerry said this, all the students started booing and throwing their rubbers and scrunched up paper at Matthew. Unfazed, he sighed again and reinforced his skin with a thin layer of protective mana.
After the class was over, Matthew undid his bindle and pulled out a sandwich with beans as the filling. Eating it gingerly, he forgot about all the rude comments towards him and just focused on the good.
This moment, however, was short lived as the boy who previously tried to trip him slapped the sandwich out of Matthew's hands.
Staring in shock at the sandwich on the ground, Matthew just stayed silent.
"Why's an Earth Mage allowed to even eat? Scum!" The boy said as he threw a soccer kick at Matthew.
Letting the kick collide with his face, he just grinned. "Just remember, you hit me first".
Matthew conjured earth over the boy's leg, binding him to the spot as he waited for the cool down to go down. After waiting 10 seconds, he conjured up an earthen bat and smiled devilishly as the other boy tried prying his leg from the trap.
He tried casting his magic on Matthew but what came out were only half assed sparks of light. Seeing their friend in danger, 3 other boys came to defend him. "T-thanks guys" The boy stuck in the ground spluttered.
Matthew was an unordinary kid, even while disregarding his hidden ability of being unshackled to the curse that limited other Earth Mages, he awakened his magic on his own when he was a toddler. His mother was a tutored person and was well versed in the ways of magic but was only shackled down by her affinity, Earth. So she was shunned from society and had 2 kids to raise, so she was poor. Thankfully, being poor with the Earth affinity meant that you could grow food by yourself anywhere, so it did have it's own perks, that and being able to create your own shelter (Albeit taking a long time to do so).
He was taught magic by his mother at a young age and so was his sister as she also awakened at a very young age. While other kids around his age right now struggled to create little spurts of magic, Matthew could conjure whole earth spikes, earth walls and many more that his imagination allowed.
The other boys used their magic and a tiny geyser of fire appeared on one of the boy's hands, followed by the applause of the class, even Mr. Jerry. The other boy made a light gust of wind from his hands and this too was forwarded by applause.
Rolling his eyes, Matthew looked at Mr. Jerry who just stepped out of the room in order to have "Not seen" the fight. He snickered a bit and started swinging his bat.
Crack, Crunch, Thwack were the sounds that followed soon after, that and the screams of pain from the boys and the screams of horror by the students.
. . .
The walk home with his Mother was long and suspenseful. Not a single word was uttered but even still, Matthew could feel the overbearing pressure that his Mother exerted.
When they got home, his mother gave him a firm slap on the cheek. Matthew didn't say anything or even react to the slap, only looking down at the ground in shame. 'This feels familiar' He thought to himself.
"Why" His mother asked, but before he could answer, he was slapped across the cheek again.
"Why" His mother repeated, slapping him again.
Still silent, his eyes started to water.
"Why". "Why. "Why".
At this point, Matthew's cheeks were red and tears streamed down his face. He gulped his saliva and kept staring at the ground, shaking every now and then.
Crouching down in order to see her son, Matthew's Mother hugged him and rubbed his back.
"Why did you do it?" She asked, genuine this time.
"Because they were always mean to me!" Matthew cried. "They did this to me always! Every single day! Just because I was born an Earth Mage! I didn't choose to be one! Why can't they realize that!".
After getting that out of his system, Matthew just continued to loudly cry while his mother silently listened and comforted him.
"Shh, it's okay now. Mommy's here" His Mother comforted. "How about this, why don't I homeschool you?".
"R-really?" Matthew sniffled.
Nodding, Matthews Mother answered. "Yes son".
After Matthew calmed down, the two of them went into the living room to relax, only to see Hazel, shaking on the ground with vomit coming out of her mouth.