„I am here to bring you pain!” Luke growled through clenched teeth.

With one of his hands dripping blood, he slowly sank them into his hoodie, smearing the black material with dull crimson, and wrapped his fingers tightly around the knuckle dusters. The rugged fingers almost melded with the bronze metal, he brandished them slowly and the small etchings he made in them reflected the light coming through the window from the rays of sun that pierced the smoke and dust in the room.

The room was a mess, mess that seemed to hold the time in stasis. This place reeked, of stench and lack of hope for change, change for better.

The only thing that broke the status quo were the cries, the cries of the pinkish, chubby littke infants that tumbled around and bawled their eyes out, their flushed little cheeks stained with drops of hot blood of their birhtmother. Little fists shaking in the air, and from that violent, uncontrolled movement, the tears that mixed with the spilled drops of blood stain their pink and blue duvey.

Two drops appeared at the same time from the glassy eyes of the twins, and as if coordinated, both slid down their rosy cheeks at the same time.

The men clenched their muscles.

The drops hung from the warm skin, dangling in the air.

Luke bent his knees, bringing his fists closer to his torso.

The drops started falling.

With a rapid swing, the man pointed his shadowy claws at Luke.

In unison, the drops splashed against the duvey.

Both man burst into action.

With an animalistic growl, Luke charged at the shadowy Raven-like man, eyes bloodshot and pupils dilated. Five cones of condensed ash and shadows shot towards him soundlessly and tried to pierce his head through. Luke deflected them with an upwards swipe of his left hand and with a burst of kinetic energy pushed himself under the man in a split second.

Blink, and you will miss it.

As his hands switched positions, he dodged a swipe coming from his right, the claws seemed to leave a streak of dark in the air as they passed. And that streak screamed in hight pitch tones.

Dropping onto his right hand, he gripped the carpet tight, fingers digging into the material and shredding it. Throwing his whole body mass to the side, he launched a capoerira kick with his leg leg, the shin impacting with concussive force. The guard that the Raven Man raised barely kept up, his own face bouncing off his forearm. His body followed suit and he was lounched away from the crib, near the wall on the opposite side of the room.

Like a prowler, Luke pushed himself off the floor and reoriented his body, bursting behind in a chase, with his magical pathways misfiring he tried to bring out a technique.

„ RELENTLESS PURSUIT!” His words infused by his will announced to the world, and his will became the truth. His body started giving of steam as it circled the blood and power quicker, muscles rippling with strengh and breath short and quick. He closed the distance with a full guard raised, stepping in with a twist of his shoulder just as the Raven Man composed himself and raised his head towards Luke.

Their eyes met.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Three quick, right jabs were shot out in quick succesion. The first two missed, only grazing the mans head as he dodged to the side, sliding along the wall. Luke's knuckles left deep imprints in the wall, breaking the material.

The third jab connected right on the nose and made the wisps of shadows tremble as the head of the man bounced off the wall, leaving it full of cracks. The inscriptions focused telekinetic force into bursting bubbles on impact. Concussive blasts that drove the liquids in your body to tremble and spill over, it was disorienting, painfull and effective.

A split second, is all it takes, a split second where the mind wonders, and the body has to pay the price.

A full body left uppercut followed the jab, rocking the dome of the Raven Man and dragging him up the wall as Luke followed through with the punch. The man's feet were almost half a meter above the floor as Luke's fist disconnected.

The technique he cast flooded him with directions, instincts, speed and power. The pursuit continued.

BAM!

A right, overhead hook dug into the mans's stomach, the material of his clothes and soft, supple flesh wrapping around Luke's fist as it drove in deeper.

A curtain of vomit and blood came over Luke as the mans body bent over and emptied the contents of the crushed stomach.

More cracks on the wall.

The Raven sank his talons into Luke's back before they could create distance. The shadowy substance made contact with the skin pulled tightly over compressed muscled and slid down his back, opening the skin like a zipper but unable to pierce the steaming muscles.

With an animalistic roar, Luke clasped the man in a clinch, his burly arms tightening like a noose around his waist and his shoulder pushing him into the wall, making the ceiling and the floor tremble.

Once, twice, thrice, the mans body smashed against the wall as he uselessly tried to pierce deeper into Luke's body.

The children screamed in terror from the noise, from the shaking of the entire flat. The windows rattled in their frames.

A lucky swipe managed to graze Luke's face and cross over his eye, thankfully missing the eye itself but managing to take a few steps back and stop the onslaught.

His technique shocked him for that, an electric pain filled his nervous system, as he took few steps back his head shook from the backlash.

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The Raven was heaving, slightly bent over and legs trembling from the damage.

His voulnerability eniticed Luke, made him crave more violence.

His body moved before his thoughts could form, guard tight and compact, his upper body started rotating.

Blast by blast, shots exploded, hooks, jabs, straights. They bombarded the opponent, creating noise and havoc on impact.

The man was overcome with relentless assult, the rain of punches rattled his bones, his blood vessels burst and even his magic could not save him.

He increased the output of the shadows, and they covered more of his body. He started moving faster, his body was denser and more resilient. He started bobing and weaving, managing to slide some hits off him.

When the proper oppurtunity showed itself, he slipped another wild hook by a hairs breadth and started his escape, his back and shoulder closely sticking to the wall.

Luke followed, punches not stopping, trailing behind the man.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

His fists sank in the wall, the cracks now spread through out it whole, more and more concrete debris shooting of it like a frag granede exploding. Each hit a small explosion of it's own, creting plums of gray and ashen dust.

One could trace the position of internal organs on a human with the height and placement of the holes in the wall.

The Raven slid towarrd the corner, and hit his hip on the door knob, breaking the metal off the plywood doors. A second passed at most, and before he could reposition himself or even modify his guard, a powerful blast shot him through the door into the next room.

Luke gagued the perfect moment, and as his opponent was cornered he spun with all his might. His left heel made the air scream as it cut through it, creating an arc that connected directly into the chest of the man and exploding with all the kinetic power he managed to scrounge up.

He finished the move with a dancers grace, landing on his toes and with rapid movement shot forward, not allowing for the pressure to drop.

Luke could feel the Technique influencing him, he could not give ground, he could not relent. He had to get him. He was stronger, faster and better than his enemy. He will smother him under a flurry of punches.

With those thoughts filling his head, Luke accelerated even more, his tendons and bones creacked under preassure as he exerted the body that has yet to healed properly, into higher and higher levels of power.

The Chaos fueled the chase, the Primordial sang in his ears, a choir of violence, a thirst for redemption, a need for release.

With the power or a balista shot, his left fist exploded forward, air screaming as it cut through the space, aimed directly between the two shadowy eyes of the scared man, open wide in horror.

BANG!

Somehow, the Raven managed to slip the punch, and the fist sank into the wall, piercing through it completely and exploding the concrete like a frag granade into the other apartment.

Luke, in his maddened rage, did not care for how the shocked and unprepered man managed to dodge the hit, he only cared to tear at his flesh.

With his right arm cocked behid his hip, he ripped the left arm with force from the wall, and used that momentum to launch a short right hook into the side of his opponent. The hit was massive, bones broke and organs squelched as the damaged man released a squel that changed the tone with each twist of Luke's knuckles, digging into his torso.

As the twist finished, another concussive blast shot forward and blasted the man away through the small bedroom, making him crash through the old, tattered bed, and barely stop on a dresser under the dirty window, making it shatter and the dresser erupt in a plum of splinters.

„MORE!” Luke screamed and his powers thrummed.

With a heavy step, he trasferred the power, and with all his weight and the strengh of his legs, he smashed the man with a teleknetic pad into the wall on Luke's left. The man flew like a thrown brick, and smashed against the wall that was covered in cracks.

„ADVANCE!” he roared and his skin started sizzling, it blurred during movement as he started raining down fist after fist on the shocked man hidden behind a guard from ash and shadow. It coalesced around the man like a cocoon, and it trembled and twisted with each punch absorbed, with each punch it became less, with each punch it wrapped tighter around him.

A certain treshold was reached and something popped. A storm of shadows expanded from the man, and pushed Luke back with the force of hundreds of knife slicing away at him, centimeter by centimeter his form was pushed back untill his back touched the wall behind him, and he stood there as everything on him, and around him was shredded to bits. His guard raised saved his mask, and by miracle his pants remained tattered yet in one piece. All the furniture, carpet, his shirt and items in the room became shredded.

Luke's advance was stopped.

He allowed his arms to drop and they looked into each others eyes.

The Raven Man trembled in fear.

Luke's mouth released a cloud of steam as veins on his body pushed against his skin, his forehead throbbing to his heart beat, as his eyes became more and more bloodshot with each second.

Luke's teeth clattered against eachother as his jaw clenched and blood spilled from the gums, almost making the sound of his teeth grinding in rage inaudible.

Almost.

The Raven drew his power back in, and it suffused his whole being. It made his form shimmer and flicker.

Luke, guided by his technique charged mindlessly, using the wall behind him as a foothold, he shot forward with a superman punch and a madmans warcry.

With debris scattering in a wave pattern from where his heel ejected off the ground, Luke's body proppeled forward like a rocket. His body left a waft of steam and a haze of light as it pierced the air, his fist collapsing the air it crashed against.

Bang!

Luke felt the wall give way to his strenght, not flesh. The man turned into a specter and phazed through the wall without leaving any trace at the last moment just before impact. Luke's arm punched through the wall and he dove deep into it, almost up to his shoulder.

Freezing in place for a second, his mind tried to absorb what happened.

He released a violent, animalistic howl as his arm, now dug in, elbow deep and hooked into the wall on the other side, and with the intensity of the scream rising, he pulled the arm closer to his body as he braced against the floor.

He Pulsed his senses, and he felt the enemy close to the crib. He felt him looming over the innocent.

He felt the childrens terror, he could feel how heavy their tears were.

„AAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!” His mouth screamed as the arm pulled closer, the wall gave away and the crack around his bicep spread furhter untill the whole wall gave way, Luke's shoulder pushing thought the cracked fragments as he shambled into the living room, covered in dust and sweat.

A plum of smoke erupted as he passed through, spread even further by his manic screams. A rabid animal lost in the throws of rage, barely pulled back by the leash made of wisps of his remaining Will.

A heavy thud hit the ground as Luke's other foot crossed through the wall. He froze, only his torso rising with movement caused by haggard breaths.

The Raven loomed from behind the crib, both infants wiggling in his arms, the shadowy wisps muting their incessant cries a little bit, making them more distant.

The talons sank into the supple, chubby flesh of the young, a miracle they were not cut into ribbons on contact. A silent exchange happened between the men. A threat stated, Luke unclenched his fists a littel bit, his shoulders lost a bit of tention, concession was given.

Unblikning, they stared at each other, anylizing movement, energy, each, minute detail.

A single twitch of muscles, a tension in Luke's thighs and slight reposition of his heels for a better start, less than 0,1 second of movement, and it was enough for the raven to extend his talon of shadows and freeze Luke in impotent rage as the edge slid into the pinkish skin on the infant and made a blossom of crimson bloom on the kids forehead, he slid the talon downward down to it's cheek as the baby wailed in pain and terror.

The Raven smiled and spoke:

„Uh, uh, uh, don't you dare to move or the little shit carriers will get it. Drop it, drop every ward and barrier on you! And don't try anything or they will be turned into minced meat!” The shadows on him rolled in anger, yet his trembling body and voice revealed what the shadows tried to hide. The man was hurt, weakend and scared of Luke.

He stood there, straight and while blood dropped of him in small rivulets from the open wounds in his skin, and his breath was a little bit intense, he felt great. He knew given just a little more time, he will turn this bastard into paste. His mind screamed at him to continue, to follow through. To be relentless.

Luke gritt his teath and with something inside of him snapping, he released the Relentless Pursuit, making the body relax a bit. A short breath escaped his mouth as reason, or at least something of it's resemblence returned to him.

„ I need to protect the little ones, at all cost, I need to catch him off guard.” the thoughts filled his head as most of his powers focused on passively incresing his senses and reflexes, the body cooled down from outside while nerves started firing live lightning within.

Through clenched teeth he squezed out the words: „Hurt them and I will make you regret thissss...” the word dragged on.

The Raven seemed amused, and through tired breaths he shrugged his shoulders in a show of uncaring.

And he tossed the children towards the shattered windows.

The timed seemed to slow down, the cries became lower in octaves, the light more piercing bright as Luke's body went into overdrive. He shot forward, launging with a mighty leap, trying to catch them before they hit the floor or skewer on broken glass.

The two were tossed closely together, he will be able to catch them both.

To be sure he pushed forward his Will, and blanketed the kids in teleknetic embrace, holding them motionless in the air as their paltry weight was transferred to his massive arms, so light, yet the burden so heavy.

His bloodied fingers, so rugged and skin pale, were milimiters away from the dirtied baby clothes. He could feel the damp fabric, the crusty filth wrapping around the infants.

And he felt being dragged downwards.

His eyes widened and he snarled as the distance between him and the children became bigger with each hearbeat, they were being pulled apart.

The floor became closer and closer, he could feel something influence his whole being as an anchor of weight dragged him downwards.

His hips sank in the cement floor as foreign magic veiled around him, making him pass through solid matter. Drop like a rock in the water.

As his ribs leveled with the floor he roared and used everything he had to position himself in one relative spot in space, he used all the weight he could absorb from around him, every furniture, person, the push of the building into the ground. He drew it all in and pushed against himself from every side, smushing his body in one spot.

Something yanked his legs a few more times and after a second passed, the foreing magic vanished and his torso took on the brunt of 100's of kgs of solid cement being displaced by his body, it shot into the apartment below like a wall charge being detonated. He remained rooted perfectly sunk in the floor, elbows scraping on the carpet.

He looked upwards and saw the Raven catching the kids effortlessly into his arms.

The bastared just smirked at him and with another pulse of his Shadow Veil, he sank into the ground and started running away through the walls of the floor below.