”FUCK!” Luke exclaimed as he burst into motion. With a sudden, rising rage that threatened to burst the blood vessels in his brain he shot forward uncaring for the damage he would incur.
“The fucker is running away! What a bitch!” he screamed as he chased behind him, vaulting over the onlookers without a second thought.
Klaus gained some distance, passing through alleyways unused by the public he covered space with enough speed to cause Luke to worry. He was losing him.
Without care for consequences, Luke burst with power, displacing cars, trashcans, and brickwork, he absorbed the weight and kinetic power to propel himself forward after his prey.
Just as Klaus entered the main road, the life vein of the city, and took the turn to the left following the tram tracks, Luke shot out behind him, like a bullet, dragging his bone claw along the cobblestone floor, digging the fingers deeply as shards of rock shot out. He paused and shot out to follow Klaus, with light lamps hanging above their heads flashing like a stroboscope as they continued their chase.
With each thunk of Luke's leg, his ankle burst like a ripe watermelon, vicious red liquid staining the earth below him, spraying with each beat of his heart. He was visibly injured, hobbling, his one leg being dragged as he pushed and pushed forward, leaping above crowds, with each landing his face scrunched up with pain.
“FUCK!” he exclaimed as he landed and his ankle gave out, he rolled across the walkway and with a beast-like movement slapped the ground under him and shot out like a cannonball.
“GET BACK HERE YOU BITCH!” as he yelled while flying through the air, he extended his right arm, pointing center and the back of the escaping Klaus. Extending his mental reach, he tried to hook onto the escapee, but his natural magical field negated that trick. Feeling his magic grip fizzle out, within a second he switched his target, barely managing to extend his reach so far he grabbed onto the parked car in front of Klaus, and just as Luke was about to land, he transferred all the kinetic energy from his drop into the side of a car.
With a loud THUD, the car bounced sideways as if hit with a sledgehammer, wheels popping as the front of the car slid right into frantic Klaus. His legs are embedded into the car as he bends rapidly, smashing the whole front of his body into the mask of the car. A loud groan escaped his mouth as the air left his lungs and blood took its place.
This was not a good day for Klaus. He could feel the bones in his legs and femur shift around, broken. He was choking on his own blood and could barely breathe. His whole body was in pain and his mind was in shock.
Luke, seeing his opponent stop moving slowed down. He walked towards the car as terrified onlookers were moving past him, escaping from the unexpected commotion. His mind was set ablaze with pain as the Veil gnawed at his mental space in punishment. Grinding down into his psyche.
He hobbled slowly, the moment of respite made him actually feel his body. The flow of blood from the many open wounds, the agonizing, cold, seeping pain in his leg, his arms that were now the shade of deep purple, covered in frostbite.
“Goddamn it, nothing can ever go well,” he said as he stopped behind the blond man. Still sprawled out in the dent of the car. He grabbed him by his blond hair and was about to flip him over, he lifted his head from the mask.
And after a second long pause smashed the head into the car, again, again, and again. Loose glass jumped up with each hit and fell into the dent, only to be smashed by Klaus's face.
“Aaaaah, I needed that,” he said to himself as he finally flipped his enemy over.
What he saw, made him quite concerned.
He was smiling. Though blood and gore, with missing teeth and both eyes purple, he was smiling.
“What?” he asked as he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him closer to himself.
“WHAT!?” he screamed directly into Klaus's face, touching nose to nose.
“It's my turn now,” Klaus said as he grabbed Luke with both hands. Luke felt a distortion in space and realized his fuck up.
He froze up before he could try to stop him, Klaus ejected a massive amount of aura that surrounded them both and forced them behind the Veil. Unprepared, it disoriented Luke, messed with his own field of power, and made him stumble backward as the body readapted to the magical environment.
They have moved out of the range of the interference talisman, unknowingly to Luke, he was led into a trap.
His prosthetic touched his face as he tried to center himself. The world spun as his head was filled with an overpowering feeling of strength, sensitivity, and overabundance of sensual perception.
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Just as his mind regained some composure, he could feel a fist the size of his forearm smash into his side, ribs cracking and his eyes bulging from their sockets at the sudden impact. He shot into a wall, his body still mid-phasing into its true form shaking from trauma as blood vessels popped and the nervous system screamed.
He didn't even notice he was embedded within a stone wall as an amber-colored claw ripped him from it and tossed him into the middle of the street.
* what...what is happening...* he was dazed, and confused, the pain barely punching through his cloudy thoughts. He took in the sights surrounding him. The hazy figure with those piercing blue eyes was closing on him, he looked downwards, at his shaking, black ink-covered hand and bleeding torso.
* This is not how this is supposed to go...* he clenched his fist and swung forward.
“NOT LIKE THIS!” he yelled.
With a cold laugh and a chuckle the Atlantian welcomed him, even beyond the veil the damage persisted, the missing teeth, the broken arm now coated with an amber-colored cast of magic, the bruises on its otherwise pristine body. And the broken horn, seeping with black rot, mangled flesh unable to heal.
“OH, HOW I CRAVED THIS!” He exclaimed as he grabbed Luke by his outstretched arm and flung him over his head onto the pavement, next, without a pause he spun and tossed his body with immense strength into the edge of the building.
Luke's spine cracked together with the edge of the building, concrete debris falling upon him like rainfall. Twisting in pain, he was crawling on all fours, trying to resist, to stand up. He had to gather himself up. Turn the tides.
Another kick took away his breath, and once more he crashed into the side of the building, parts of the wall crumbling to reveal an empty room.
This time, he managed not to fall, he remained standing. Unable to breathe, his lungs squeezed within the ribcage. Pulsating in an agonizing act of begging for air.
Another kick arrived, but this time, blocked by the prosthetic, held in crossguard in front of his real arm, tight against his braced body. He sank deeper into the wall yet remained focused.
He looked his enemy in the eyes. What he saw was malice. What he saw was a monster.
Grinning at him.
With a mighty PUSH, Luke repelled the leg, which he just now noticed was clad in armor of azure metal. Just as the pouldrons, chest guard, and vanbraces on his opponent.
Just a second before it struck, he noticed the Zweihender triple sword, with amber crystalline ice shards and frost covering the three-prong blades that were closing in on his head, radiating terrifying cold.
He tried to stop it by sapping its kinetic energy, but the coalesced magic around it made it impossible to stop, by instinct, he did the second-best thing.
He directed it upwards while smashing his own head downwards and away from the blade that left a trail of misty fog in its wake.
He could feel his hair flash freezing and crackling away from his scalp as the blade passed above.
His pupils widened while gazing between life and death.
They contracted once he could see his opponent closer.
Smirking at him.
He lost himself in the rage, as the wall behind him was covered in ice and the blade was swung backward, his mind expanded into a bubble of influence, surrounding tens of meters around them.
All that held weight, speed, or trajectory was stopped and repelled.
All that energy coursed through him, mangling his insides.
All that power was channeled through his prosthetic.
And as he turned his hips from under Klaus, his body wailing in agony, the fist connected, covering his glistening bone arm in a web of microfractures.
As the power exploded, so did the chest guard of Klaus. The majestic armor set, ancient by human standard, refined by his family, donning his crest and given to him by his father shattered on impact, magic energies unable to dissipate such a concentrated blast of power. Instead of protecting, it served as shrapnel. With a bang comparable to a frag grenade and crushed ice, it disappeared in seconds. Most of it is within the skin of Klaus, penetrating the monster's hide and digging into muscle and bone.
He was shocked and unprepared and the agony once again flooded his mind, unused and unable to cope with such pain.
Luke did not stop, he couldn't, how could he?
With pain and shame coursing through his veins he exploded forward, a right straight connecting perfectly, the power of the blow pushing the scrunched head of Klaus backwards.
Another punch, a left hook, packed with residual kinetic power detonated as Luke was in midair, overextending to connect.
The last punch missed, guiding him to follow the collapsing figure. They both fell, Luke, tumbling over the monstrous body of Klaus.
They both rolled over, gaining some distance between each other. The pale man rose to a wrestler's hunch while the proud monster stood tall, the huge, tri-pronged blade gleaming menacingly in his hand.
With an overhand swing, it dropped down onto Luke like an axe, seeking blood.
Desperately, he rolled sideways, barely a breath escaped his mouth as he managed to dodge the slab of metal crashing into his position. The shards of rock smacked against his body like a shotgun blast.
Wordless panic overtook him. He could easily understand the gap in raw power, technique, and skill. He ignited his inner reservoir. His chest shone, ribs visible through bare skin. His teeth clenched in a scowl of torture as his heart pumped more than he could handle. The excess of energy scorched his muscles as they activated. His channels crackled as they carried forward power meant to destroy.
He focused the feeling of hate and flaring within his right palm, and his fingers ignited, white-hot blaze radiated from the palms of his fingers as his arm swept in a wide arc, gouging a deep furrow in Klaus's chest. Cauterizing the wound from before, turning the shrapnel pieces into molten slag within his tissue.
As the muscle burned through, he visibly had enough. Using the sword, he channeled the ice, and a cascade of glacier power shot forward. It pushed Luke backward, locking him in place. From his feet, a wave of debilitating cold rose upwards, freezing him at the moment, immobilizing him.
The ice crystals started forming rapidly, rooting him to the flooring. With audible cracks they were rising along his legs, inch by inch immobilizing him even more.
Klaus started his monologue. Proud, indignant, angry and smug. Just outside of Luke's reach.
“You really had me there for a moment, I'm enough of a man to admit that-”
“A DICKLESS MAN” Luke interrupted.
A bolt of ice smashed against his chest, exactly where the spear penetrated before. A flower of ice bloomed around the point of impact and took root within the gash on his chest as his body rocked backward and his back hit the earth. His legs were covered in permafrost up to the shins keeping him from falling down completely.
“As I was saying, for a filthy half-breed like you, it was a good plan. To catch me unprepared, corner me, cut me off from my powers. To even the field. You even forced me to use up my lifeline. Do you know how expensive that potion was? DO YOU? Eh, who am I kidding, of course not, you barely know anything in that mud-filled head of yours.”
Luke was smashing both of his fists onto the ice, from inside it filled with blood as the skin and muscle raptured from the movement and was stuck to the covering glacier.
BANG BANG BANG
Without a care for his words, Luke was trying to crack the ice and the pavement under him. But to no avail. The spot of expanding ice on his chest was already starting to restrict his movement. He was using his prosthetic to scratch and cleave at the ice.
To no avail.
“ENOUGH! YOU WILL LISTEN! I'VE WAITED TOO LONG FOR THIS NOT TO ENJOY IT!” With a swift movement, he slashed Luke from shoulder to knee, an open gash instantly frozen into a block of cold, as if armor, it covered his torso, connected to the ice covering his shin, and locked the left arm pointing downwards while the right arm extended above his head, fist clenched. Only his head was left uncovered. The ice spikes digging into his chin, immobilizing even that. As the ice crackled while expanding, Luke could only stare with hatred and impotence at his enemy. Jaw clenched enough for tendons to poke through the skin as his eyes swirled with radiant power, surrounded by depthless darkness.
“Now, let us begin.”