Crawford

"I own the night."

- Crawford "Hey... Hey there, it's going to be okay. You'll be safe now... Robyn... Robyn Sakura."

- Crawford finding and adopting baby Robin Sakura

Appearance
He is a middle-aged tall man with short silver hair with a hint of crow’s feet around his blue eyes. He wears a leather black tunic jacket with white outlines that has coattails hanging down to his thighs and it has a hood with point at the edge over his eyes attached to it. He has a detachable mask which acts as a filter that covers his lower face, showing only his eyes. A pair of black armored knee high boots and a pair of pants tucked in them. He wears a pair of gray leather gloves. He has a pair armor on his arms going up to his elbows. He has quiver attached to his back, with a utility belt and a sheath on his left side.

Personality
Crawford is a hardened thief and ex assassin who tends to work alone for most of his life with a strong sense of survival, self-interest, and independence. His time on Remnant, fighting, stealing, and killing to survive left him quite jaded, cynical, and callous for the most part. He only allows very few people into his life maintaining a close but professional relationship with, his master who recruit and trained him, his fencer, some past associates. The only person he is truly close to is his adopted daughter, Robyn Sakura.

He takes professional pride in his thief work, that no job is too small nor too easy, though he would be more likely to take jobs that would give him a challenge. Despite killing people in the past, he does not kill on job, seeing it as unprofessional for a thief and brings unwanted attention. Despite that, while he won’t actively kill people, he is not obligated to save people, he tends to let the dust clear and pick what’s left. He does have a hint kleptomaniac as he does get a sense of excitement when he steals on the job and tends to plan for the next job during his spare time. Crawford is quite greedy as well as he tends to steal more and pocket some of the earnings for himself. As such, he holds no qualms of stealing from the poor, if they have something of value, he will take it.

He is rather neutral towards the Huntsmen and Huntresses organization, he rather have them out of his way not wanting to deal with them, but respects them that they focus on killing Grimm, which had been a major problem for him when traveling. He didn't really care for the White Fang, though they did hired him a couple of times to steal whatever they wanted for decent pay.

He deeply cares for his daughter as she was his flesh and blood. Crawford is willing to break any rule in the book, his own including, if it means to protect her, even resorting to killing people. He knows that he made enemies in the past and know that they would go after her. While, he trusts that she could protect herself, he does not take any chances and made strong threats against criminals who would even observe her, he would not hesitate to send a bloody warning to them.

Background
Not much is known about Crawford’s youth, but it is known that he was originally from Mistral and he had no parents and no home. He spent most of the time running messages in the underworld and pickpocket many people just to get by. One night, he decided to swipe some valuables from one man who was able to pass through the crowd, like he was a ghost but young Crawford was caught by him just as he was able to pickpocket. Instead of getting mad, the olde man was rather impressed by his skills and ability to detect him among the crowd, and offer him a choice to follow him for a new path in life or take the money and continue on his way. After a moment of hesitation, Crawford took up the old man’s offer and disappeared into the crowd.

The old man who became his mentor is Artemus and he was an assassin for hire who was able to complete his missions with very little detection. From there and to adulthood, Crawford was train hone his sneaking skills to higher levels, trained his body to peak conditions, fighting, education and anything to help him to become a formidable assassin. During his time training, he always felt the urge to steal and started sneaking around the compound, putting his newfound skills to the test, stealing food, valuables, anything that could benefit him.

Despite his conflicts with his mentor, he still performed well in his training and did become an effective assassin, adopting the codename, Altair. He has taken many missions to complete with great success, from business leaders, politicians, and mob bosses, if the job pays, he’ll take it. Unfortunately, since he was working with Artemus, some of his payment took a cut for him which frustrated him greatly. He attempted to solo as an assassin but during most of his missions, he found himself more concern on stealing some loot for himself despite not being the objective.

So one day, he decided to change his profession of an assassin to a thief and for awhile it went well and established himself as a master thief around the underworld, and expanded his work from Mistral to Vale and other places of the four kingdoms. Due to his independent streak, he tends to rebuff any attempts from joining any criminal organizations, even when they don’t take no for an answer and ran into conflicts with them at times.

One night during a job in Vale, he was tasked to steal some files for a crime boss who hired him a couple of times but his client thought it would be safer to silence Crawford to erase any traces and revenge for Crawford to rebuke his efforts to join his gang. As he fought his way out, it turns out that he was followed by the rival gang and attacked the mansion and chaos ensured. Crawford resorted to use lethal methods, killing many members from both gangs who attacked him as he tried to escape. Battered, bloodied, and wounded, he headed out to lay low, along the road, he heard a noise by the road near a cherry blossom tree. It was a baby girl, wrapped in a pink blanket, crying, with only a note detailing her birthdate. Crawford picked her up and looked around in bewilderment, wondering where her parents were. He looked at her in his arms as her crying turned to joy as she tried to reach out to him and smiled a bit. His conscience knew he couldn’t leave her there, and after the lives he took on that night, perhaps he could just save one. He took her in to raise her, naming her Robyn Sakura.

While it was difficult to be a thief and a parent, he was able to save enough money from his assassin days and thieving jobs to stay afloat for awhile until he was able to train her. Over the years, he and his daughter traveled around from safehouse to the wilderness, to camps, just surviving the countryside, teaching everything he knew when he was an assassin and a thief now, sneaking, stealing, fighting, the underworld, and Grimm. In the meantime, he did everything he could to find her origins, her parents and why she was left by the road to no success. Crawford eventually told her the truth about her origin and to his surprise, she took it in stride and responded by hugging him telling that he was her father who raised.

As Robyn grew to be an excellent thief, he noticed Robyn has a soft heart filled with compassion, he knew she could not continue her career in the underworld in the future. Eventually, he let her take jobs on her own that allow her to ease her conscience. When the two were conducting a countryside heist, they found her that their target was pursued by a pack of Beowulfs. Crawford wanted to stay back, but Robyn wanted to help pleading with him that it was the right thing to do. He knew at this moment, this could be a calling for her, for something more. He simply replied to her that she is free to make her call, and as predicted she swooped in to save the family. Overhearing them that they will help her apply to Beacon Academy to become a Huntress, he quietly receded back into the forest before giving one last look to his daughter, and smiled in approval for her future. Still worried about his daughter, he privately visited Ozpin for assurance that her criminal background would not impeded her application and be kept under wraps, and Crawford in turn will not conduct business on Beacon Academy or in the city of Vale anymore. He kept his promise as Robyn went to Beacon, keeping watch over her making sure that she was safe.

Battle of Beacon/Time Skip
When the Grimm attack, he was at the outskirts of the city and rushed into the heart of the battle to find Robyn to make sure she was safe. Crawford battled through Grimm, White Fang, and robots on the rooftops until he saw her fighting with her partner. He was relieved she okay but kept watch from a distance and only intervene when it is absolutely necessary. When a Nevermore picked up Pyralis, he discreetly fired an arrow at one of its wings to slow it down. To his horror, he witness Robyn getting ganged up by a squad of White Fang soldiers, and when they were about to kill her, he stepped, with no restrictions to killing, as they were not dealing with an assassin, or thief, they were dealing with a father. He shot off a couple of arrows, killing two instantly, and turned his bow into a bladed bo-staff and quickly dispatched to the rest with ease, leaving the leader the last to stand. After a brief sword, he brutally killed him via several cuts to him with his sword as he saw him being the one who injured Robyn. He carried the unconscious Robyn to a safe area and lit a signal to show their position and hide out of sight when Pyralis flew in to take her to safety.

After the battle, he stayed among the civilians undercover keeping a close eye on Robyn. He was able to visit her privately visited her after she recovered. She thanked him for saving her and the two caught up and learn of what Team REPR was planning on doing next. After that, he resumed back to his thieving job and in between jobs, he infiltrated Beacon in hopes to recover any items that Robyn and her team lost during the battle. When he learned that they were planning on going to Mistral, he silently followed them, knowing the dangers that lies in the country. Someday, he would have to introduce himself to the rest of the team… someday.

Weapons and Abilities
He wields a retractable recurve bow that he used as an assassin, it can straighten out and extend into a bo-staff and it has retractable blades on it for extra damage. Crawford can still use the bow form in combat and he is capable of switching between two different forms mid-fight.

Due to his training as an assassin, he is capable of using firearms about he preferred to use a bow because they’re silent and the arrows are reusable.

Crawford has a short sword that used when he was an assassin on him, it can use dust as he can coat it in dust-form.

He has an assortment of arrows to use in combat that are sharp and durable, and he is capable of using them as melee weapons. His arrows can be scatter, firecrackers, smoke, explosive, wind, gravity, ice, grabbling, line, electric, sleeping gas, tear gas, EMP, jammer, radar, video, just name a few and he can create more trick arrows to suit the job for him.

Crawford’s stealth skills live up to his reputation as a master thief, he has the agility, strength to climb, parkour to complete his job without any detection. He is capable to sneak up on Robyn a couple of times over. His training as an assassin helped that regard and making his combat skills quite impressive. He is no slouch when it comes to hand to hand combat with his fighting style akin to Pencak Silat. His fighting style is quick strikes to wear down the opponent, hit the weak points, distractions, fight dirty and go in for several killing blows or knockout hits once their dazed. Past experience in fighting to survive in a harsh world allowed him to be on par against a Huntsman.

He has great marksmanship with his bow and arrow and capable of making shots farther the eye can see. The reason, he chose a bow and arrow was because they were silent and quicker to use for assassinations, and now he uses it for thieving purposes. He can hit a fast moving target, from a sprinter, rampaging animal or Grimm, or an acrobatic fighter. Crawford is required to think quick on his feet in the middle of combat to stay ahead or otherwise from past experience, he could lose his head if he hesitated for a bit.

His main weakness is that he cannot do prolong fights, while he is more capable in close quarters combat than Robyn, he is still a roguish fighter and cannot do a straight up slugfest. His age is catching up to him so he is not as fast or strong as he was when he was younger even though he does his best to maintain his physique.

Relationships
Artemus: Despite their differences and being out of touch with him, Crawford holds a degree of respect to his master and father-figure as he was the one who raised and trained him. While rough, Artemus treated him fairly and passed on everything he knew to him to be an effective assassin. A formidable assassin with the codename Horus, in his own right, he is one of the very few people who could sneak up on Crawford and one of the fewer people that Crawford is hesitant to fight against. As of now, post Battle of Beacon, Artemus is still doing his own work and might be considering a family visit to see his “granddaughter.”

Lady Viper: Crawford’s ex-lover when he was an assassin back then. Their relationship is complex, they had each other’s back when their lives were in grave danger but she was insisted on continuing as an assassin while Crawford wanted to be a thief. Despite their split, Lady Viper was able to help him out when her really needs it and actually helped him took care of baby Robyn when she was younger.

Robyn Sakura: His pride and joy. He deeply loves his daughter and do anything to make sure that she has a happy life, and not for her to have the same life that he did. He is willing to break any rules to protect her, even restore to kill if they present a threat to her. His only regret is failing to find anything on her origin and how and why she was abandoned. When she went to Beacon Academy, he would on occasion sneak it and check up on her from afar, making sure she was doing okay. Crawford would make an official visit and have a father-daughter outing. He would always make time to still teach her on how to get by in the world and spar with her as well, or try who could out-sneak each other.

Trivia

 * Crawford came from an Old English words of crawe meaning crow and ford, so crow is considered black.
 * His codename, Altair, is Arabic for bird or eagle
 * Crawford is inspired by Garrett from the Thief video game series.
 * Crawford's master, Artemus, sharing the same name as Garrett's mentor.
 * His birthday is the same date that the first Thief game, Thief: The Dark Project was released.
 * Artemus is Greek for Moon for white.
 * Mr. Crawford, is a reference to Ozzy Osbourne's song "Mr. Crowley"