Test Action Scene

I'm aiming to write my first story, so I wrote a test action scene. I've already defined the magic system, and might have the personality of the character sorted out. Has violence.

Experimental Small Action Scene for Unnamed Story

Back out on the streets at night, the same old routine of the past three years. I've been watching over this city for a while, attempting to keep what goes bump in the night from bumping people off. I might indulge in a bit of jewel thievery, but I will stop any one and any thing from killing, by any means necessary. Thanks to a handy piece of enchanting I'd figured out, I had a necklace I called a Notice me Not charm, which does exactly what it says on the tin and let me me get around more easily, and keeping said clumsy things in the night from spotting me. Unfortunately the effect couldn't do everything " I still need to be able to blend in naturally. So at night, like now, I went out in an outfit of a black hoodie, black jeans, and a ski mask.

At the moment, I'm trying to find a murderer or bloodthirsty magical creature that had killed or seriously wounded nearly a dozen people in the last three days. They had been the biggest story on the news, and never left any evidence " only brutal murders by stabbing. No evidence meant nothing to track, even by magical means, which forced me to find him the hard way " patrolling. Though for this particular nasty, that might not be such a hard thing - all their kills had been within half a mile of each other, which made it relatively easy to search them out.

“I won't let you destroy any more lives,” I thought to myself, “I will find you tonight.” Nothing got away with this scale of murder, at least not when I live nearby. I couldn't stop all deaths, everywhere, but I at least tried to stop spree killers.

And I did " barely two hours into my patrol, I found someone forcing a woman into a dark alley at gunpoint. Most likely not a magical nasty. I was using gravity manipulation to pull off the stunt of any vigilante's wet dreams " rooftop travel. I couldn't make out a gender, as they had a mask on, and being on a rooftop, I was too far away to tell otherwise.

I used the magical aspects I'd combined to travel " Manipulation and Gravity - to make the jump to the roof nearest them, and made myself light enough to creep down the side of the building. I'd done this often enough that I didn't make enough noise to shatter the notice me not effect, which only prevented people from passively registering that I'm there. Halfway down the building, the murderer, a he, I thought, exchanged his gun for a knife. All the dead victims had been killed with a knife " the survivors had been shot, which probably meant he wasn't intending on letting her walk away alive.

At this range, there wasn't too much I could do without using a gun, and pulling cops around wasn't a great idea for a magic using vigilante. That left me with magic, none of which I had enough control over to use at this distance, somewhere around 30 meters away. I settled on a fireball, and red light built up as I converted aether to the elemental aspect of Fire, shattering my notice me not effect. I quickly converted more aether to the conceptual aspect of Manipulation, gathering red, flickering energy, and bending it to my will. I outstretched my hand, willed the energy to coalesce in front of it, and sent it hurtling at the murderer, praying it didn't disperse enough to hit the woman as well.

The energy did disperse quite a bit, but faded enough over the distance that instead of a ball of fire hitting both the man and woman, a sheet of fire almost gently glided over the man's torso, setting his clothes aflame, lighting the dim, damp, alley with a flickering orange. The woman, an old lady, I could tell now thanks to the new lighting, fainted out of fear, shock, or the situation becoming too much. The man, justifiably, screamed bloody murder while shucking off what I could now see was a hoodie, and patted out the flames on his pants with his free hand. That meant he was most definitely not a magical baddie, as something disguising itself as human would have reacted more vehemently by now.

I dropped the rest of the way to the ground, since now that I had an opportunity to completely focus on magic I could manipulate gravity enough to come down quickly. I backed up to the edge of the dumpster, just in case I needed some cover. He had backed the woman into the alley at gunpoint. I was now a mere handful of meters away from the man, and couldn't resist a bit of taunting " He was a mundane, and I rarely had trouble with them.

“Feeling a bit t-,” I was cut off as the man pulled out what I could now see was a 9mm pistol, and started taking potshots at me.

“Damnit, damnit, damnit,” I growled to myself as I ducked behind a nearby dumpster, “Why did I open my damned fool mouth? How many times does this have to happen before I learn not to taunt armed killers, mundane or magical?”

Not only was this bad because of the flying metal bits of deaths, but the cops would surely be arriving soon, now. Working on a time limit was hard, and the notice me not would only work if nobody was aware of me in the first place. I had a few options left " pull out my own .45, or use magic. I usually used the gun if something was particularly nasty and magic didn't affect it much, and gunfights weren't particularly appealing. That left magic, but I had a fairly limited repertoire of aspects I had mastered. I only had two elemental aspects, water (I can barely control it), and fire (Moderately good at this one). I did have a handful of conceptual aspects mastered, though, and while those were generally less effective at combat, I could make use of them.

I gathered roughly a quarter of the magic in my Well, and split it between two aspects " Manipulation and Sound. A low buzzing filled my ears as the magic gathered in my hand and I converted it even between Manipulation, to control it, and Sound, to make a shockwave to completely disorient the man. At this point I could hear his footsteps nearing the dumpster, and I was almost ready. I stretched my hand out from behind the dumpster and willed the combination to let go in one large funnel, all at once.

The blast, even controlled and directed away from me, filled my ears with a ringing noise, and shoved the dumpster back nearly half a meter. I could barely hear the murderer scream as his eardrums burst, and I leaped out finding the man alarmingly close to where I was hiding. He was bent over in pain, both hand clasped over his ears, stumbling around. I quickly retrieved his gun from the ground, and kneed him in the gut, knocking him to the ground. I kicked him in the side, possibly breaking a few ribs, to make sure he stayed down.

I was fairly certain he was unconscious by this point, it was hard to tell in the flickering light of his burning hoodie, but just to make sure I clubbed him on side of his head with the butt of his gun. Well, my gun, now. I began to hear sirens and went to check on the old woman before leaving. She was still unconscious, which was a mixed blessing, but I figured I'd do something to make sure she was still warm when the police got here. I gathered a bit of my magic, converting it to Manipulation, and Heat, and willed it to gather around my hand creating a small shimmer in the air. The Heat pulled in energy from the surroundings, heating whatever it was on or in. I willed it to slow down its effect, not gather past a certain point, and proceeded pushed it into the elderly woman's clothes.

The sirens were getting too close by this point, and I activated my notice me not necklace, and drew yet more magic from my dwindling reserves to convert into a combination of Manipulation and Gravity. I flipped gravity sideways, feet to a side building of the alley, and strode off home.

Author's Note

Bash me hard for grammar problems, I've read it through 3 times and can't find them - I auto correct in my head. Ignore the lack of indents though, they don't copy over. This is my first ever attempt at writing of my own volition, not for a school project or essay. Critique HARD, please - I need tips.