New Day

Alec Lee jerked his head to the side to avoid a flaming baseball that had been thrown at him from behind. Luckily for him, the heat pouring from it betrayed it's trajectory before it could hit him. He was on a morning run like he usually was around this time but today it was less voluntary as he would have liked it be.

"Crap, all I was doing was trying to get a little exercise. This is way more then I was looking for!" Alec frantically thought to himself.

He was being persistently pursued by a group of bat and baseball wielding delinquents. Alec had accidentally ran into one of them that was coming out of an alleyway corner. They were apparently on their way to play a baseball game and were very quick to anger despite Alec's best attempts at an apology. This resulted in the situation of Alec being chased after by them.

"Come back here, Chicken! We're going to pay you back to what you did to the Boss!"

Alec ignored the calls after him and continued skitting around alleyways and dodging around corners. The architecture of Centre City was a hectic patchwork of all different sorts of styles from all around the world. Traditional architecture reminiscent of famous cities such as Paris and Venice as well as more modern buildings could be found here making it a somewhat difficult place to navigate. It was only thanks to him having explored this part of this city on numerous runs that he was able to find his way through this network of intricate twists and turns despite being a newcomer to Centre City. Not only that, if he could not lose them, he was also confident in his ability to outrun them since he ran daily and the delinquents were wearing overly bulky clothing consisting of leather jackets and pants and many of them were already out of breath.

However, there was one factor they made Alec worry. The constant assault of fiery sports equipment that was being thrown at him. So far, he had avoided all of the throws with only slight burnt tinges on his sweatshirt and pants, but he was not sure he'd be able to keep up it for much longer.

"Pitcher Craft, Page 3 - Hotball Special!"

With a magical chant straight out of a fantasy book, a mystical circle appeared above one of the delinquent's palms that was holding a baseball that had been given to him by one of his lackeys, and the ball was set on fire. The delinquent grasped it in his gloved hand more tightly then threw it at Alec. He dodged to the right and the ball grazed his arm burning his sweatshirt. He could feel the heat of it straight through his sleeve and was grateful again that he had decided not to wear lighter clothing that day.

"Maybe I shouldn't have flipped that guy over when he threw a punch at me. With my luck, I should've known that he would've been a Craftsman. Seriously though, what kind of delinquents are up at this time of day playing baseball for Pete's sake!"

Craftsmen were the wielders of magical abilities aptly known as Craft. It was something all sorts of supernatural feats such as thaumaturgy, divinations, and invocations could be attributed to. After magic had become public to the world ten years ago, Craftsmen came out of hiding as well becoming a prominent influence in the world with their powers. Centre City itself was a place made by a Craftsmen for Craftsmen. Though this was the case, Craft was still a gift few people possessed with only forty percent of the population of the city actually having this gift and this select few did not include Alec Lee.

Despite that, Alec was not going to let this stop him from accomplishing the dream that was his reason for coming to Centre City, becoming a Venturer. Venturers were professional warriors and treasure hunters who protected and explored this world that had been altered by magic. Achieving this title allowed nearly anyone to rise up from nothing and become something. It was commonly thought only Craftsmen were able to become Venturers and Alec was determined to prove this wrong. It was what he had dedicated years of training to do.

As Alec turned another corner, he realized that he was running on a bridge over a small canal. Thinking quickly, he decided that this was a good chance to finally lose his pursuers and jumped off the bridge into the water below.

He broke the surface of the water and began swimming away as fast as he could. He had only gotten about a dozen meters away when he heard a voice shout out.

"The rat's in the canal boys! Go after him! Show him that he's not getting away that easily and what happens to a Craftless that doesn't know his place here!"

These words from the delinquent boss caused all of the group to jump into the water after Alec with reckless abandon. Their boss followed after them as well and now all seven of them were paddling their way towards the young man.

"Are you kidding me? Why are they so desperate! Do they not have anything better to do!? I knew I should've taken the route through the tenth district today."

Craftsman held a lot a sway over Craftless in the city but he was still surprised that their loyalty was this strong. He looked up ahead to search for a spot where he could leave the canal. After searching for a few moments, he found an entranceway just up ahead. He vigorously swam with all his effort and eventually was able to reach it.

He exited the water panting heavingly from all the exertion taking what few seconds he had to recover some of his stamina before continuing his perilous escape. Or at least he would have if he hadn't shortly run into a dead end. Alec scanned his surroundings to see if there were any way to get out but to no avail. He kept thinking for a way out of this situation anyway when something interrupted his thoughts.

"We finally caught up to you! You made us even angrier running away, you're toast now." The delinquent boss gloated.

They were all out of the water now having finally caught up to Alec. The combination of the leather clothes and them being soaking wet now made it look to Alec as if they had been rained on at a heavy metal concert.

The delinquent Craftsman outstretched his hand and one of his lackey's filled it with one of the few baseballs they had been able to carry with them in the water. He then called out the same chant as before and set the ball ablaze before hurling it full force at Alec who just narrowly dodged it. The burning ball continued past him and struck the wall behind Alec with a loud thud. The delinquent boss smiled viciously as another ball was prepared.

"Dangit. How am I going to get out of this?"

"HEY!!!" Someone shouted out from above their heads.

They all looked up, including Alec, to see who it was.

The shout had come from a young woman who looked to be Alec's age who was eighteen. The young woman vibrantly stood out to Alec. She had a mixture of black and white hair and was wearing a tracksuit with vivid purple lines on it. Similarly, her eyes were a deep shade of violet that seemed to glow with a shine of its own in the early morning light. As she glowered down on them with those eyes, hanging from her ears were a pair of earbuds attached by wire to a MP3 player at her hip. Something that was basically an artifact compared to the advanced technology that was available in modern times.

"You should've been more careful about where you were throwing those things, idiots. You're wrecking this spot up. You better stop now." She warned.

Alec looked back at where the flaming baseball had hit the wall at her words and then saw something he had noticed before. Right up above where the ball struck, there was a strange emblem graffitied onto the center of the wall that was a stylized combination of the four courts of playing cards. He had not been able to analyze it for long when one of the ne'er-do-wells walked up passing Alec and responded to what she said.

"And what are you going to do if we d- "

The miscreant was unable to finish his provocation as the young woman jumped down landing foot first on his face slamming him into the ground instantly to everyone else's shock and surprise.

"Anyone else got any bright questions? If not, you should get going." She flatly stated while her sneaker was still pressed firmly on the unfortunate ruffian's face as he groaned from under it. For a few moments, all of the delinquents were still stunned and unnerved by what just happened until their boss eventually exclaimed, "You think that's enough scare us! All you did was fall off a building! Take this!"

He threw another flaming projectile at her trying to scare her off, but instead, she simply caught the sphere in mid-air with her bare hands and was seemingly unfazed at it being in flames which bewildered the delinquent Craftsman since even he had to wear protective gloves for it.

The mysterious young woman then promptly crushed it in her hands with a tremendous strength that did not seem to match her lithe frame or any other human's frame for that matter.

"Scram now and take this piece of trash I stepped on with you!"

She followed this up by kicking the miserable fellow on the ground like a soccer ball towards the delinquent boss knocking over him and two other people.

Alec's eyes widened as he struggled to come to terms with what he was seeing.

"Even for Craftsman, strength like that is not normal."

Most Craftsman only had simple abilities like igniting things or molding objects out of clay. Everyday actions that could be accomplished with mundane tools and effort, but the strength that she was exhibiting surpassed anything that could be considered "mundane". What was even greater than this was that he had not seen any Sigils appear. Sigils were the sign of Craft. Whenever a spell of Craft, a mystic skill, was performed, Sigils would appear that acted as a conduit for magical energy. That fact that a Sigil did not appear just then showed Alec that she was not using Craft.

"Wait is she..."

Alec came to a startling realization.

"She's a Variate. A human modified using Craft..."

He had heard very little about Variates prior to coming to Centre City and after arriving there as well. What he did know was that they had superhuman physical abilities which were clearly apparent to Alec now from the immense strength she had just showcased to everyone there.

Fittingly, this display was more than efficient enough to scare away the group of ruffians.

"She's...she's not normal!!! She's a monster! We need to get out of here!!!"

The group of delinquents hurriedly brought their fallen members to their feet and they all eagerly dived into the water in order to get away from her.

Alec let out a sigh of relief. He was glad that he was finally free of being chased by them.

"Thanks. You really saved my hide right ther-"

"You too."

"Huh? But I wasn'-" Alec tried to explain himself.

"Doesn't matter, I have to deal with anyone who trespasses into my territory." She declared boldly.

"What kind of jungle logic is that!?"

Ignoring his question, she leaped into the air for an axe kick which he barely managed to avoid by flinging himself to another side of the alley. This movement confused her since it was in the opposite direction of the canal.

"You've got some good reflexes, but you're not going to be able to dodge for long."

She immediately jumped in the air for another kick and saw that even if he dodged this one he wouldn't be able to avoid her next one since she would just launch another kick as soon her foot reached the ground.

"It's over!"

Just she like thought, Alec was able to dodge, but only by a small margin. However, as she came down she was sent spiraling into the air due to landing on top of the baseball that the delinquent boss had thrown that had hit the wall. She managed to regain her bearings and land squarely on her feet, but Alec was already at the other end of the alleyway about to jump into the canal again.

"Sorry, I have other stuff I need to do today, and I'd rather not get beat up so early in the morning."

As she watched him dive into the water, she realized that the reason he dodged in the direction he did was to lure her into tripping on the baseball that he knew was lying on the ground there.

"What a strange guy..."

***

After Alec had found another way out of the canal and had gotten back to his apartment, he took a shower and plopped on his bed in order to get to some extra rest for the day ahead.

"Man, this city sure does have some abnormal nutjobs doesn't it?"

He grinned.

"...And someday I'm going to be the most abnormal of them all. I have to be."