Uriel Tyrae
The Beat Cop
In the interim period where Uriel and Morgana called Ace of Spades home, they had both taken up the defence of the castle turned city; as a dutiful member of the guild, Uriel had pledged his powers and his blade to its management, whereas Morgana– though she was not a member of the guild– was also helping by offering her healing services. However, at this point in time, she was currently aslee; they’d had a rather long night and she deserved her rest. In the meantime, Uriel had taken a moment to wake up after getting dressed, find a nice caramel latte in one of the local coffee shops, and go for a walk through the place as the blonde-haired Ca-Elian noble did rather routinely. He was starting to learn some of the names and the faces around the place.
As he took a stroll down one of the main thoroughfares, Uriel caught a glance of a group of five youths with rather dilapidated clothes and being rather loud for six in the morning, when the sun was barely up; torn black tops and jeans, headbands, the works. They looked like the very definition of punks. Not that Uriel was judging them, but while they stood out front of a shop, one of them reached down for large loose stones on the ground, and then tossed it as hard as he could through a shopfront window.
Uriel scowled, and knew that this was going to be his exercise for the morning. Immediately, the steaming takeaway cup in his hand dropped to the pavement with a clatter, and the phoenix knight donned the golden and tyrian panoply of his knighthood. Hardened plates of a rare Pergrandian steel alloy and a blade that crackled blue with aetheric energy sprang to life, cladding his body in the aegis of powered armour that had become his signature. The polearm was clutched in two hands, whereby it would be an efficient weapon to dispatch foes. Behind the crimson lenses of his gilded helm, Uriel considered the nature of his foes; these were mere juveniles, but outright intimidation would not necessarily be the most efficient method. However, it certainly made for a wonderful show.
As he approached, the phoenix spear traced arcs through the air, leaving crackling energy in its wake. ”You attack guild territory,” spoke the man towards the ruffians with a voice modulated by his armour to sound deeper and more imposing. ”Come quietly to the local authorities and none need be hurt.” It was designed to be a threat to intimidate and hopefully bring them in quietly. Violence was not always the answer.
One of them, with a chain wrapped around his left arm, laughed boorishly in the knight’s face. They all began to step closer to Uriel, despite his overbearing and large plated armour; the fact that they had the numeric advantage was not lost on them, but what they could not see was that Uriel was already preparing his defensive and offensive strategies even as they began to attempt to surround him. Their first hint would be the shimmering barrier that began to fold itself over his plated body, cascading under the light of the sun as the five young men began to form a circle. The second was that Uriel’s head was already tracking them as they began to move.
“Whatever, man,” the lead one said, already moving up to get straight into Uriel’s face. “We’re not scared of you, mate. Take your fuckin’ fancy armour and piss off. You wanna go?”
They could not see Uriel smirking under his helm. He did, in fact, want to go.
The one behind and to the right of him was already charging his fists with magical energy; Uriel could hear the tell-tale crackling of fire behind him as he surrounded his hands with what were effectively flaming brass knuckles. It would be a sufficient strike to do some real damage, were it to work. The other one, behind him, began to form a similar weapon of earth. The grind of stone upon stone as it formed was unmistakable. Perhaps this, too, was part of their intimidation plan.
That, as far as Uriel was concerned, was resisting arrest. Very well.
Without hesitation, the phoenix spear cast itself out wide, taking a circular arc as he engaged his repulsing strike; all five of the men found themselves knocked backwards and in serious pain in the next second as Uriel began to engage. Knowing the power of his blade, he was already taking a teleport step towards his next opponent, having thrown all five of them off balance with a single wounding strike. He needed to strike now while the anvil was hot and maintain the upper hand, so removing them surgically was his best option. To that end, Uriel elected not to boost the power of his blade with his crush-gaunts, but instead to directly reave his opponent with the fully-unleashed power of his weapon. The edge of the gilt weapon began to glow with a scintillating blue light as it pierced into flesh the moment he appeared behind the punk whose hands had been encased in flame.
The young man let out a scream as he dropped to the ground, blood seeping out from the wound that had just been dealt to his shoulder. It was nowhere near enough to kill, but certainly enough to incapacitate. Uriel stared at the next foe that had decided to advance upon him, having now suddenly reduced the odds from one versus five to one versus four. His now implacable advance was met with resistance, as energy blasts of wind, water and earth began to splash off the field that surrounded him; Uriel took that moment to finally charge his crush-gaunts to ensure that his blows rang true.
The earth mage began to charge, hands still wrapped in their stony embrace. Using the reach of his glaive, Uriel thrusted forth, blade unloading a crackling blast of energy directly into the young man’s sternum. The near-explosion of magical energy was enough to drop the kid down onto the floor.
”Two,” he announced, eyes locking with the leader’s once again. He could tell that he was now becoming paralysed with fear; there was no way he could fight this enemy on his own, and his minions were now falling one by one. Instead, he folded his hands behind his back, and waited, taking a step back to let his two other followers take the lead.
The water mage was next, conjuring a whip of energy that struck out at Uriel and wrapped around his leg. It was enough to snare him and, as the magical tendril began to wind back in like a fishing rod, Uriel found his balance entirely compromised. Unable to balance, he found himself well unable to retaliate properly, until he was right on top of his enemy who was prepared for the moment, a point-blank ring of water striking into his stomach. Uriel groaned as his energy field shuddered and began to flicker away, having taken repeated dangerous blows - but it was not enough to hold him back, where he simply charged his fist with the energy of his savage strikes and punched the kid square in the nose. Blood pouring out, the youth stumbled back, the water whip disintegrating into little more than a puddle on the ground. Uriel chose instead to throw the blade like a javelin into the kid’s leg, piercing flesh - and then, in the next second as he advanced, plucked it straight back out. The kid wasn’t standing after that.
Finally his attention turned to the wind mage. Afraid of being pinned to the floor by a thrown blade, he was almost ready to give up - until his boss was onto the armoured knight, jamming the point of his summoned requipped shiv right between the joints of Uriel’s left elbow. The blade immediately pierced flesh, skipping all of the armour. The knight roared in pain and, without hesitation, kicked the offender square in his left knee. With the heavy plated boots charged with energy, it was enough force to shatter his kneecap with the strike. In the next instant, the phoenix whirled his spear over his head and sliced down at the enemy’s chest, leaving a harrowing gash in his skin. The kid dropped. It was a merciless strike, but Uriel was now past the point of mercy.
Then, unhesitatingly, Uriel released his grip on his spear with his left hand and struck the shiv that was still stuck into his armour with the haft of his blade, like an ancient warrior removing arrow shafts from a wooden shield. The shiv clattered to the ground before Uriel brought the spear over his head to toss it at the wind mage with all of his prodigious strength, the blade glowing with a now unholy blue light.
“No! No no no!” yelled the last one, before he put his hands up. “I surrender!”
There was no point fighting a dude who’d just dropped four guys effortlessly. He was, what, some kind of wizard cop?
Letting out a long sigh, Uriel began to proceed through the rigamarole of policing these five. Five wounded, damaged kids who had promulgated magical violence, caused property damage and attempted to assault a guild member in their own territory. It had been a stupid mistake, but Uriel was not going to ease up. Instead, he called the local authorities and allowed them to process and handle this; now that he had finished the job by ensuring their cooperation and turned them over to the proper people, he allowed himself to breathe finally, the armour and blade vanishing into the aether.
He looked at his left elbow, and found that his tunic was torn and the offending limb was still leaking blood; he’d have to employ what little of his own healing magic that Morgana had blessed him with to staunch the worst of it. When he got home, she was going to have some very serious questions for him.
Uriel didn’t know what was worse: getting in a fight, or an angry girlfriend. He was about to find out.
MEL @ WW
