Crow

by Vishnu Pinnaka

  People screamed and ran around, trying not to get hit.

  “You cannot keep the children safe forever,” the leader said sinisterly.

  Mr. Hale then reached towards his watch and pressed an emergency button.

  He frantically recorded his voice. “Requesting back-up at The Enchanted Dish Restaurant! Come quick!”

  “Call your agents, we’ll be long gone before then, this was just for fun.” The leader sadistically cackled.

  “What do we do now, boss?” asked the second man.

  “Keep enjoying yourself,” the leader replied.

  “With pleasure!” Amos laughed.

  The terrorists continued to cause mayhem in the restaurant. They magically dropped chandeliers from the ceilings and barely missed some customers. They destroyed tables and chairs. Finally, they created a giant fire that was slowly starting to burn down the entire restaurant.

  The people inside the restaurant were all terrified, especially Nigel. He was screaming when he saw the flames. Luckily, the customers and employees evacuated. The only people left inside were Everett, Peppy, the four, Mr. Hale, and the terrorists.

  “Everett! Take the children away from here, they are the four, the four from the prophecy,” Mr. Hale screamed as he tried to put out the fire.

  “What! Of course, Preston,” Everett said as he quickly grabbed Peppy and the four.

  He led them to the exit.

  Before the children left, the four saw the terrorists sadistically laugh before they teleported away using the same watch-like device that Mr. Hale had.

  The fire continued to spread and there was smoke everywhere. The four couldn’t see anything that was happening inside.

  “Let us go inside, Everett! Where is Mr. Hale?” Vanessa screamed trying to run back inside.

  She was terrified but needed to rescue Mr. Hale.

  “I am sorry, I promised him I would protect you! Besides, I now know how important you are,” Everett answered.

  The building was half destroyed before the flames finally disappeared.

  “Where is he?” Olivia started to cry.

  Everyone had tears in their eyes.

  All of a sudden, Mr. Hale stepped out of the building. His face and clothes were covered in ash.

  “Thank goodness you kids are alright,” Mr. Hale said, relieved.

  “Who were they? Why did they come here?” David asked still in shock.

  Before Mr. Hale could answer, many cars showed up. At least thirty agents stepped out.

  “Preston, we heard there was trouble. What happened?” a lady urgently interrogated him.

  “Our suspicions were right, Wanda. The three men are following the children. Today they came and attacked us. They just left,” Mr. Hale answered.

  “So it’s confirmed then. They are hunting for the crown and the four are in danger,” Wanda said worriedly.

  Mr. Hale sadly nodded.

  “We will alert A.S.H. immediately. We will also ask some witnesses to give descriptions of these terrorists. You take the children home and tell them everything. Tell them about their missions. Tell them about the crown,” Wanda said.

  Mr. Hale nodded. “Come along children.”

  The four knew that they were now finally going to get the answers to all of their questions. They followed Mr. Hale without a second thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Black Crown

  The drive back home was very silent. Mr. Hale hadn’t said a word since he asked the four to come with him. The four themselves knew that life on Magia would never be the same. They knew that whatever reason they were on Magia put them in grave danger. They were all getting ready for answers.

  After the car finally stopped in front of the apartment complex, they all stepped out. Once they walked into the elevator and entered the penthouse, they all went to the living room and sat down.

  Ivy peeped out of the kitchen. “I saw the news. I know what happened at the restaurant.”

  Mr. Hale answered, “It’s about time the children knew why they are here.”

  Ivy nodded and went back into the kitchen.

  Vanessa then asked, “What was all of that? Why are we here?”

  Mr. Hale sighed. “I was a fool, thinking that I could hide the secret from you. I just wanted to protect you, but now I know that you not knowing anything puts you in more danger.”

  “Not knowing what? Please tell us,” Olivia asked.

  Mr. Hale spoke, “I will tell you everything. The reason why you’re here is a very long story. It’s goes way back into Magia’s history. Before I tell you that, you need to know why Magia is so magical. It’s not just a planet. It’s like an intersection, a crossing point between many other planets, magical planets. While humans with magic in their souls, magians, are indigenous to Magia, other creatures, such as figons aren’t. These creatures come from other planets by portals, wormholes, gateways. These gateways are hidden away in land and sea. Us magians have only found five percent of them! Anyway, magic from other planets seeps into our world, making Magia the most magical planet in the entire galaxy. Many creatures coming from the other lands have been peaceful and gentle creatures. We happily shared our world with them. Magia had the right resources for the creatures to survive. Meanwhile, we magians started working on our civilization. For many years we lived unbothered in peace and tranquility, until the First Shadow War. You see, the gateways leading to our world didn’t filter light and dark creatures. So as peaceful creatures came in, so did dangerous beasts. There were many different types of dark creatures. Some were enormous and crushed the ground. Others had magical powers which manipulated the land. All of them were terrifying and deadly. For some time, we were able to hold them off and control them. However, more and more beasts just kept coming in, and soon, Magia was overrun with monsters. This marked the start of the First Shadow War.”

  “Wait a minute, so Magia has portals leading to other planets and dark creatures came in through those portals?” Vanessa recapped.

  “Yes.”

  “Why aren’t any monsters coming in through the portals anymore?” Vanessa questioned.

  “Some do, but it’s nowhere near the amount back then. This is because we have found some main portals to dark worlds, and we have closed them off. However, there are still thousands of small, unfound gateways lying around unprotected,” Mr. Hale explained.

  “Keep telling us about the Shadow War,” David asked.

  Mr. Hale nodded and continued narrating, “The Shadow War was the darkest time in magian history. It was also a very unorthodox war. There weren’t any treaties, battles, sieges, or even opposing sides. It was just the monsters against anyone who wanted to live. You either fought monsters or went into hiding and waited to die. Thousands died a day. The magian race was almost eliminated.”

  “That must have been horrible,” Olivia uttered sadly.

  “It was. The main emotions that all magians felt were sadness, despair, and fear,” Mr. Hale said grimly.

  “Earth has never been through something like that. At first, I thought that Magia had a perfect history. After all, it had magic to help it out. Now I see how magic creates its problems. Horrifying problems,” Eric realized.

  “You are very right, Eric,” Mr. Hale replied.

  “Keep telling us, Mr. Hale, what happened?” David inquired.

  Mr. Hale spoke, “Even though magians did put up a great fight, it was very clear that the beasts weren’t being stopped. It was also inevitable that all magians would lose hope and stop fighting. This would have happened if it weren’t for one man, Oliver Roland. Roland was already very well known by magians at that time because of stories of his bravery. He courageously fought many monsters even when the chances of him surviving were slim. Oliver decided that he was tired of seeing despair. He wanted to save magians and end t
he war, even if he would lose his life in the process. However, he knew that he couldn’t do it alone. He asked for the help of his four closest friends: Alexander Crest, Darren Ivory, Scarlett Cross, and Landon Abernathy. Together, the five of them searched for something that would help them with their task. After many days of searching, they still hadn’t found anything. It wasn’t until Roland found an old book that their search was a success. The book was very unusual. Even though it looked very old, it wasn’t dated. Oliver Roland didn’t know who wrote the book or where it came from. The book’s pages also weren’t numbered and it was like the person who wrote it just stuck the pages in. However, the strangest thing about the book was the warning to not read it on its cover. Roland ignored the warning and studied the book. He didn’t think he would find anything, but the warning attracted him to it. It was like the alert made Roland think the book was something indispensable. Roland was pretty sure he was wrong, but as he read through it, he found something which he instantly knew would save them all. It was on a page at the end of the book. The page looked burnt as if the person reading it before had tried to destroy that single page. However, it was clear that the person failed because Roland could still clearly read the words. The page was like an instruction manual. It showed steps to create something. To create a crown.”

  “A crown? What could a crown do?” Vanessa asked.

  “Something that would end the war, and something horrifying,” Mr. Hale answered.

  “I don’t understand. If the crown could end the war, why would it be bad?” Eric queried.

  Mr. Hale sighed. “All actions have consequences, Eric. The crown may do something good, but everything stipulates a price.”

  “Tell us, Mr. Hale, please,” David said, he desperately longed to know.

  “Yes, of course,” Mr. Hale spoke. “The page was very complex. It was clear to all of the five that it wouldn’t be easy to create the crown. For one thing, the materials needed were very hard to come by. Many of them were also life-threatening to find. We still don’t know what exactly the crown was made up of but we are certain that it includes black iron, hence it’s given name: The Black Crown. It was also encrusted with a Captionem Crystal. Captionem Crystals…”

  “…can trap anything inside them without running out of space,” Vanessa interrupted, now knowing what happened to the Captionem Crystal which she learned about at the gem museum. “So they were going to use the crown to trap all of the monsters inside it?”

  “Precisely,” Mr. Hale said. “However, since the Black Crown would have to separate dark creatures from light and trap every last monster inside of it, another material would be needed to make it. Something truly powerful.”

  “What?” David asked. “What was the powerful material?”

  “Soul magic,” Mr. Hale answered.

  “What? How can you use soul magic to form something?” Eric asked, puzzled.

  Mr. Hale shrugged, “We still don’t know how, but Roland somehow extracted some of the soul magic inside of him and put it inside the crown. That is how the crown became so powerful. You can’t just take out magic from inside someone, at least humans can’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Olivia asked.

  “Someone helped Roland extract some magic from inside of him and create the Black Crown,” Mr. Hale answered.

  “Who?” Eric inquired.

  “We still don’t know, but it had to be someone very powerful,” Mr. Hale figured. “Anyways, once the crown was forged, to use it one would have to say a conjuration, a spell. The spell was written on the page and encrusted in the crown. The five of them argued about who should speak the incantation. However, Roland knew it had to be him.”

  “What happened next?” asked David.

  “Roland said the conjuration, hoping that it would work. Fortunately for the world, it did. As soon as he spoke the spell, the ground shook, the sky turned purple, and a black force came out of the crown and surrounded the entire planet. The force grabbed every last dark creature and pulled it into the crown.”

  “What do you mean, fortunately for the world? Wasn’t the crown fortunate for Roland as well?” Vanessa perplexedly wondered.

  Mr. Hale grimly answered, “Like I said before, the crown required a price. The soul magic inside of it was powerful, but not powerful enough to trap all of the dark creatures. For that it asked for something else. An unpayable price. Roland’s soul.”

  “What! How? What do you mean?” Eric queried.

  “As the crown was pulling the monsters into it,” Mr. Hale spoke, “it did something else. When Roland put a part of his soul magic inside of the crown, the crown had a taste of Roland’s soul. That small taste made the crown want more. So for every monster pulled in, a small piece of Roland’s soul would also be taken in. As more and more monsters were being trapped inside, more and more of Roland’s soul was being destroyed.”

  “So that was the horrifying thing the Black Crown did.” David put it together.

  “Wait a minute, what do you mean the crown had a taste? The crown is an inanimate object, it can’t taste or want anything,” Olivia logically said.

  “When Roland gave the crown a piece of his soul magic, it gave the crown a small soul itself. A small consciousness. This gave it the ability to think. The more of Roland’s soul that got pulled in, the huger and smarter its consciousness became,” Mr. Hale answered.

  “That’s freaky,” commented Vanessa.

  Mr. Hale nodded. “Once all of the monsters were pulled into the crown, Oliver Roland’s soul was completely destroyed and the crown had a complete soul of its own. Having your soul destroyed is much worse than a regular death. Not only do you die, you also don’t exist anymore. You can’t stay back as a ghost or go to the Soulscape because you have no soul to do so. You are just gone, forever.”

  “That’s terrible,” Olivia said.

  “It is,” Mr. Hale agreed. “However, Roland knew that he wouldn’t have a happy ending, yet he still did his duty to our world. We owe our very existence to him.”

  “He was a great person,” uttered Vanessa.

  “He truly was,” David spoke, “but after that, what happened?”

  “When the other four went to look for Roland,” Mr. Hale answered, “all they found was the Black Crown in ashes. They looked at the page and knew what happened. All four of them felt guilty about what happened to Roland, but they knew that it was inevitable that something like that would happen to one of them. They all admired what Roland had done, but were terrified at the thought that Roland had suffered in vain. They needed to know that the future of Magia was bright and what Roland did made it stay safe. So they all touched the crown and looked through it into the future. Any magians can look into the future through an object’s eyes. If the object exists in the future, you see what the future would look like. If the object was destroyed in the future, you would see nothing. Doing this requires lots of experience and energy. Only the most gifted magians can do it. Anyways, once they touched the crown, they saw the future very clearly. To their absolute horror, the future was not bright. They saw the modern cities in flames and monsters taking over the lands. They saw darkness, they saw despair, they saw fear. The Shadow War would return.”

  “Does that mean that someone was going to release the monsters from the Black Crown in the future?” Olivia asked, alarmed.

  Mr. Hale nodded. “The four of them needed to make sure that never happened. For the sake of Magia, and so Roland didn’t die in vain.”

  “What did they do?” David asked.

  “They created a prophecy,” Mr. Hale spoke. “You see, any magian can create a prophecy. Prophecies can help someone reach a goal they set, or more crucially, help someone’s fate. However, there are certain rules.”

  “What rules?” Olivia asked, intrigued.

  Mr. Hale answered, “The first rule is that prophecies can
’t be made for any selfish reasons. Prophecies can help a person’s fate, as long as that person is someone other than yourself. Another rule is that even though anyone can create a small prophecy, only very talented magians can make a strong one. There is a loophole to this though. A group of magians can all contribute to one strong prophecy. This increases the likeliness that the prophecy will come true. The final rule is that all prophecies become weak on Fractus Month which comes every thousand years.”

  “What was the prophecy called?” Eric asked.

  “The prophecy they created,” Mr. Hale told, “was the most powerful prophecy in magian history. Even now, not a single magian, or even a group of magians can make one nearly as powerful. However, the four of them were some of the most powerful magians of their time, and together they created the prophecy known as The Prophecy Of The Four.”

  “What was the prophecy, Mr. Hale? Tell us,” said Vanessa.

  Mr. Hale took a deep breath. “Here is the prophecy:

  From the doors the creatures did come.

  Some were enchanted while some were scum.

  Yet all were peaceful and we shared with joy,

  But the monsters came and Roland created a ploy.

  He found a page with something dark.

  Ignoring the warning, he did embark

  To search the lands until he found,

  A place where black iron would abound.

  He also needed a very powerful gem.

  These jewels could trap anything inside of them.

  However, there was something else needed if the plan shouldn’t fail,

  Something that Roland had, but if lost, he would receive great ail.

  It was a piece of his soul magic which he couldn’t provide,

  Yet he still did, because he knew the magians couldn’t abide

  Living in a world of terrible beasts that spread fear

  And replaced a laugh with a sorrowful tear.

  So Oliver Roland used all materials which he collected

  To create the Black Crown which made all five of us demented.