I don't know how many people really wanted to see this…but here it is. This is the story of Craig, my OC from the story Slayers and Sixth Years. This story acts as a prequel to that one. It explains Craig and his origins, fleshing out the back story given in the previous story. Please note that I'm not writing his entire experience at the AWA – that would take an obscene amount of time. Instead, this story will be selected scenes from his time there.
PART 1 – Adjustment
A pair of evil yellow eyes glowed dimly in the bushes. The vampire was hungry; it had been three days since his last meal, and he was starting to feel deprived. The hill top was a great place for feeding, but the vampires in town had an unspoken agreement to avoid the place except when necessary. They didn't want to dry up the food supply too much.
The vampire moved from the bushes, tracking the scent of human. It was strong tonight. Couples, of course, thought the vampire. The view here made it a popular spot for couples. The vampire smiled. He'd enjoyed it here, too, when he'd been human. Then his girlfriend had brought him here and made him a demon.
The smile widened. He was getting closer. The smell was incredibly strong now. He stopped. He was there. A small clearing, darkened from the lack of moonlight.
There was no one there.
The vampire shook his head in confusion. It couldn't understand…where were the snacks?
From his branch in the tree, eleven-year-old Craig shook his head in humorless amusement. He swung down quickly and, before the vampire could even turn, dusted it. As the dust scattered to the winds, Craig brushed off his hands and put his stake back into his pocket.
"Very good, kid," said a voice. Craig turned.
"Thanks, Whistler," Craig said. He smiled. "Not bad, huh?"
"He didn't even see you," Whistler said. "That's something. And its good to see you thinking with your head – that hormone spray attracted him like fly's to shit. Come on, I'm starved."
Craig grinned at Whistler. The demon had a strange sense of humor. It also had a strange stomach which seemed to require fast food every three hours. Craig knew that not to be true – when they'd been in Quor-toth, Whistler had eaten the same food he had. Craig shuddered. He'd liked parts of Quor-toth – the voices seemed less confused there – but he had hated the food. He had also hated being alone, for Whistler had only stayed for a couple of hours.
Craig thought rarely of Quor-toth. It was part of his history – no more. He liked history, but he didn't want to obsess over it.
"What's your deal tonight?" Whistler asked. He'd undoubtedly noticed Craig's deep thoughts. "You're not paying too much attention to them again, are you?"
Craig shook his head. As per usual, the fight, though incredibly minor, had distracted him from the voices. They were still there, but he didn't have to put up with them. "No," he said. "Actually, I was thinking of Quor-toth."
Whistler sighed. "Quor-toth, huh? Why that?"
Craig shook his head. "No particular reason," he said.
They entered the restaurant, a Sub Way, and placed their orders. They sat, waiting for the food. "Craig, I have something to talk to you about."
Craig looked for the joke, because Whistler was so often trying to press humor on him, but the demon's face was all business. "What?" Craig asked.
Whistler cleared his throat. "Craig, things have been happening," he began, but couldn't seem to figure out what to say after that.
Craig attempted be light. "Isn't that what things usually do?"
Whistler nodded, missing the humor entirely, which worried Craig. "Yeah," he said. "They do. But not like this. You know that place I've been saying your going to go to?"
Craig nodded. "Sunnydale," he said.
"That's the one," Whistler said. "You were going to be replacing someone. But…that's fallen through. They don't need a replacement."
Craig's brain took a moment to process that. A millisecond later, the voices started screaming, and Craig's eyes rolled back into his head.
"That can't be right!" He shouted. The room spun.
"I want to get a tattoo, Dad, and there is nothing you can do to stop me!" The room spun.
"Dear, I'm not sure about this surgery." The room spun. The darkness shimmered, glowing without light.
"Oh, God, look out!"
"Craig!" Whistler said, shaking the boy slightly. "Craig, come out of it!"
Craig's eyes returned to the front, where they belonged. He groaned. Apparently, Whistler had dragged him out into the alley when he'd started going schizo.
"How long?" Craig asked.
"Ten minutes, now," Whistler said, breathing an audible sigh of relief. "It's been a while since you've had such a long one."
Craig rubbed his temples. "I guess that when you said that, I lost control and a couple of people decided to relive their deaths."
Whistler looked sympathetically at Craig. "I'm sorry, Craig," he said, "but there was no easy way to break that one to you."
Craig nodded, understanding. "I suppose that it's hard to tell someone that the only thing they've been raised for just disappeared."
Whistler looked sick. "That was not the only thing you were raised for! Come on, let's get some food in you. Our orders must be up by now."
They walked back inside, Craig being supported slightly by Whistler. As he had predicted, their subs were ready, but they were now receiving some strange looks from everyone. Craig, who was at least partially used to this as a boy who heard voices, ignored them.
Whistler put down his sub and promptly ignored it. "Craig, I really hope that you don't believe that I raised you for one thing only," Whistler said. He was obviously conflicted.
"Then why else did you raise me?" Craig asked.
There it was. The big question. 'Why do I exist?' Craig had always wondered about it. He could hear the voices of millions of dead people – many had never found their purpose in life, and many had. None of them had ever managed to convey to him what it was truly meant to find one's purpose in life. Then again, he couldn't remember ever having been truly helped by the voices.
Whistler used this pause to consider the question. "You have a lot of potential, kid," he said. "We've always known how great a person you can be. And that doesn't mean just fighting. You're good for that too, but I mean other stuff. Really helping people, on a personal level. We knew that you were worth raising."
"The Powers knew," Craig said.
"Yeah," Whistler admitted. "But I found out first hand."
Craig grinned. "Thanks, Whistler," he said.
Whistler nodded. "Don't mention it, kid," he said, returning to his usual nonchalance. "Now, though, we've got some big decisions to make. That is, you've got some big decisions to make."
Craig looked up from his food, which, by this time, was half gone, whereas Whistler still hadn't touched his. "What do you mean?"
Whistler shifted. "Kid, you've just had your future handed to you," he said. "You can go anywhere, do anything."
He seemed to be greatly uncomfortable still. "What is it?" Craig asked.
Whistler put a hand into his jacket and withdrew an envelope. "At first, I didn't know why this came," he said. "But it's yours, and I think that was the whole point."
Craig reached out and took the envelope. It was clearly addressed to him, though the address was empty.
"I have no idea how that was delivered," Whistler said. "It was simply there when I woke up a couple days ago."
Craig nodded, turning the envelope over in his hands. He ripped it open and read:
AMERICAN WIZARDS ACADEMYMarcus Joseph, Headmaster
Dear Craig,
You have been accepted to the American Wizard's Academy. Congratulations. Enclosed is a list of necessary supplies. Regardless of your decision on coming to our school, we await your owl by no later than July 30th.
Lawrence Siroplemen, Head of Admissions
Whistler took the letter from Craig and read. "Hmm," he said. "AWA, huh? They're the best in this hemisphere."
"I don't understand," Craig said.
"It's a school of magic," Whistler explained. "They teach all the finer points of wizardry."
Craig took this in and reread the letter. "Why would I bother with it?" he asked.
Whistler laughed. "Well, kid, you have the magic. And there's obviously a lot about it we don't understand. They could help you to understand it a bit better. And it would mean that you would get the best education this dimension has to offer."
Craig mulled it over a bit. "I'm not sure," he said. "I don't really have anything else to do, so I guess I'll go…"
His nonchalance came from Whistler almost directly. Whistler realized it then, when Craig decided his future with a brush off phrase. He grinned.
"Okay, then," he said. "We'll need to get you some supplies, and then its off to school."
Craig was done with his sub. "What are we waiting for?" he asked.
A day later he found out what they'd been waiting for. Craig had led a life sheltered from the particulars of civilization – that is, crowds. Finding himself amongst so many people all of a sudden was a shock.
Whistler had brought Craig into Denver to purchase school supplies. At first, Craig hadn't had a clue where they were going. Then, a half hour of walking later, he still didn't.
"Whistler?" he asked. "Are you lost?"
"Course not," Whistler replied. "I know it's around here somewhere."
He stopped walking, causing Craig to stop suddenly to avoid running into him. The people behind them didn't have such good reflexes, though – the lead woman crashed directly into Craig, spilling her things everywhere.
"Oooh, I'm sorry," Craig said, aghast at what he had caused. "Here, let me get that for you."
"Oh, don't worry about it, dear," said the woman. "They're only a few vegetables; I've got them. And I should have had better reflexes there, don't you know." She winked at him. A moment later, she had picked up her things and moved on.
Craig was at a loss. He poked Whistler in the back. "What was that all about?" he asked.
Whistler turned away from his search to address Craig. "What was what all about?" he asked.
"That woman," Craig said. "I caused her an inconvenience, and she just shrugged it off like it was nothing."
Whistler shrugged himself and returned to his search. "Then it was nothing…" he said. "Ah, here it is!"
He was staring at a sewage drain.
Whistler bent down over it, watched by a somewhat skeptical Craig, and tapped on the drain in an elaborate pattern. "Step on top of it, Craig," Whistler said. Craig obeyed.
The second he did, the entire scene changed. Craig did a double take. The Denver street had disappeared entirely.
In its place was a winding street, packed side to side with people, and lined with stores. Craig took a step forward, looking around in awe as he went. "Where are we?" he asked.
"This is Faquep," Whistler explained. "Kind of a wizard's mall, in a strange way. It's about twenty miles underground, deeper than the sewers and the subways." He indicated upwards, and Craig took note of the fact that there was a ceiling of rock about eighty feet above them.
"All of these people are wizards?" Craig asked, hitching up the empty backpack.
"Yep…now, we've got to get started. Lets go."
They strode quickly down onto the busy street. Craig found it increasingly difficult to keep track of Whistler. The boy was getting to despise crowds.
Shopping for books was simple enough; the bookstore wasn't crowded. They were in and out in under ten minutes. After that, they picked up a cauldron at Marming's Potion Supply Depot, and instructed the employee's to mail the cauldron to the AWA. A half hour into their shopping, Whistler checked the list. He whistled softly.
"They've changed the traditional dress code," he said. "I wonder when that happened? Oh, well. We need to get you a school work outfit."
"What is it?" Craig asked, fearing the answer a bit. He hated restrictive clothing, and the robes he'd been seeing all day would probably get him killed in a fight.
"A pair of black trousers, a black sweater, and black shoes," Whistler read off. "Cheery folks. Are you supposed to be going to a funeral or a school?"
The clothing supplier was moderately full of kids looking for school clothes. Upon seeing the happily chatting children, Whistler was struck by an idea. "Hey, kid," he said. "Why don't you go socialize while I talk to the proprietor about this change in the dress code?"
He started towards the counter. Craig was in front of him in a flash, a look of mortal dread on his face. "Socialize?" he asked, becoming nearly hysterical. "Socialize? I don't socialize!"
Whistler smiled. "Calm down," he said. "Just say hello. Get to know a few of your classmates."
"And what do I say when they ask me about myself?" he asked.
Whistler halted. He looked at the kids, then at Craig. The boy had a valid point. That he was a vampire killer who could hear the voices of the dead would be hard to swallow, even for a bunch of children who had just been accepted into a wizarding academy.
"Uh…" Whistler said. "Yeah…maybe you ought to stick with me."
Craig's look of terror diminished. He sighed, muttering something about a 'close one'. Whistler didn't like the sound of that at all, but he kept his mouth shut.
They approached the counter. A middle-aged man sat behind it, smiling around at the kids who were trying on clothes, helped by store employees. "Can I help you?" the man asked, pleasantly.
"Yeah," Whistler said, leaning on the counter. "What's up with the new dress code?"
The man smiled. "It was just instituted last year, by Dean Yeager. Says he wants to start modernizing the school."
Whistler didn't press the matter. "I'd like to get a uniform for Craig, here," he said.
The man smiled down at Craig. "First time into Faquep with dad, huh?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm not his dad," Whistler said. "I adopted him. Now, the uniform…?"
"Right this way," the man said, choosing to ignore the slightly hurt look on Craig's face from when Whistler had said that he was not the boy's father.
The man led Craig into a back room, with several small stools. He directed Craig up onto one and began taking his measurements.
As this was being done, Craig examined the room. There was one other student getting his uniform measurements done, but he didn't seem aware of Craig's presence; his nose was too far up into the air.
Craig recalled Whistler's insisting on socialization and shuddered a bit. He supposed the thing was unavoidable; he couldn't spend the next few years of school secluding himself from everyone.
Oh, this decision really had changed his life!
Craig finally decided that it would be easier to 'socialize' here, rather than out in the crowd, and with this decision came action. "Hello," Craig said, using every inch of his bravery to force the words out.
The boy didn't respond.
Craig shook his head, confused. Wasn't he being loud enough? "Hello," he said again, this time louder. Again, there was no response from the boy.
Craig lost his patience in a hurry. "Hey, I'm talking to you!" he said. "The least you could do is respond!"
Finally, the kid turned his head to towards Craig and looked down his nose. "What?" he asked.
Now that he had the kid's attention, Craig didn't have a clue what to do with it. "Uh…" he said. "Well…my name is Craig…what's yours?"
The other raised an eyebrow. "Craig?" he asked. "Craig who?"
Now Craig was a bit confused. "Craig who?" he asked. "What do you mean, Craig who?"
"What's your last name?" the other asked, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Craig is my last name," he said. "It's also my first name. I've only got one."
"Are you for real?" the other kid asked.
"Well, yeah," Craig said. "What, do I seem fake?"
The attendant who was measuring the other boy told him he was done. The boy climbed quickly down and made to go. "Wait!" Craig said. "You didn't tell me your name!"
The other boy turned. "If you don't already know it, then there's no point telling you," he said. "You'll be hearing it soon enough."
He left.
Craig was finished shortly as well, and left the measurements room for the lobby. There, he found Whistler waiting for him. "All done?" Whistler asked. Then he noticed Craig's expression. "What's the matter, kid?"
Craig looked around the room for the boy, but didn't find him. "I tried to socialize," he said.
Whistler grinned at him. "Excellent! How'd it go?"
Craig looked at him. "Right…stupid question," he said. "Why else would you look so gloomy? Hey, don't worry about it. There are plenty of other kids to get to know."
The attendant came out from the other back room carrying Craig's clothing. He put it in a bag, Whistler paid for it, and he and Craig left the store.
"Were you ever a kid, Whistler?" Craig asked, as they headed through the center of the street.
"Not in the same sense as you," Whistler said. "I was young, sure – everyone is at some point – but I've always had this body, and I never had to go to school."
"Lucky…" Craig said.
Whistler didn't jump on that one, though he could have easily convinced Craig of the downsides of an eternal fight against evil.
"Where are we going next?" Craig asked.
"Lunch!" Whistler said, steering the younger boy towards a café. The unspoken closure to the statement was, without a doubt, "Where else?"
Craig reviewed the latest letter from the AWA with a dubious look. Upon receiving his return letter, the school had sent him a short note telling him how, exactly, he was to reach the school.
Whistler had already seen to it that Craig's larger possessions – his cauldron and his textbooks, which were fairly hefty – had all been sent forward in advance, to avoid clutter.
So it was that Craig stood in the middle of a pizza parlor near the heart of Denver. The letter from the AWA had been explicit enough; sit in the seat facing the window at Table 13 at exactly 8:47 PM, and he would be transported to…well, the letter didn't say where, exactly the pizza parlor seat was going to send him.
Craig glanced up from his letter at Whistler, who occupied the other seat at the table, and who was currently crunching on the crust of a slice of pizza. "Hmm," he said, philosophically. "Not bad. I'll have to come back here." He glanced down at the watch he wore on his wrist. "Only two more minutes until you're gone, kid."
"Whistler," Craig began, and the demon put down his crust to give the boy his full attention. "What are you going to do without me around?"
Whistler laughed. "You're going to have to watch the blunt comments around other students, Craig," he said. "And I'm sure I'll find something to do with my immortality once you're off learning magic."
Craig sat in silence for the remainder of the two minutes. Whistler was as close as Craig had ever had to a father; even thus, he felt no great sorrow in leaving the demon, since part of Craig's training had always included surviving by himself, sometimes for long stretches of time. And there was that lingering doubt that Whistler would have even bothered with Craig if it hadn't been for Craig's potential.
That potential stemmed from the voices, of course. The things would have driven him crazy very early in life if he hadn't managed to find ways to shut them out. One of the most effective ways of ignoring the voices was martial arts. Since any lapse in his training resulted in a maddening, and hard to control, flood of voices, Craig was more focused than any child in history.
Craig had gotten lost in his thoughts. When he realized that, he realized something else, too. He wasn't in the pizza parlor anymore. Instead, Craig stood in a small alcove, set into what he soon realized to be a long wall of alcoves. In most of them, people were appearing at a rapid rate. They were all kids.
His classmates, Craig realized.
Craig turned from the alcove to find out where, exactly he was. He was in a huge, cavernous room, around which were hundreds of the alcoves from which he'd just stepped. He shook his head…he was dizzy…a second later, his head cleared. Around him, his classmates were undergoing a similar process. Several of them stumbled and fell.
A minute or two later, as soon as the students had been given sufficient time to orient themselves, a voice, magically magnified, resounded throughout the room. "All new students, please report from the arrival hall to the Main Hall."
And just where in the hell is that? Craig thought to himself, but didn't say it out loud. A door at one end of the room had suddenly been illuminated. Shrugging to himself, he headed for the door.
At about the same time, the other students began filing to the door as well. Though it was a bit of a mess at first, it formed into a line quickly.
Craig, who'd seemed fairly confident a moment before, here faltered. The clump of people attempting to get out the door was terrifying. Craig hung back and waited for the room to drain of people before he excited the door himself.
What he found outside was breathtaking. There was flat terrain all around him, except for a fairly large clump of trees. However, after about four hundred yards or so, all the terrain (and the trees) just stopped. It was like this all around. It took Craig a second to realize that he was standing on a huge plateau that was obviously very high up.
Leaving the cavernous arrival building behind, Craig followed the light markers on the ground to the central building complex. The buildings themselves were amazing. They seemed to make no logical sense; gravity here was obviously not working properly.
Craig entered the building…
You know…it's taken me several months just to finish this first chapter. FYI…this story is going to skip large amounts of time between each chapter. After all, it's telling the story of seven years of Craig's life…if I went into too much detail it'd be wicked freaking long and would take several years to write – and really, who wants that? Please, R&R, because that's what keeps me writing. Bunker shorts be with you.