A moment of silence passed and the powers within Luke were reigned in as his clouded mind dug out where he saw her before.

Even as seconds passed, the smile on her face remained as she took in the surroundings while standing above him on the roof.

This whole place was similar to what she saw after artillery shelling. Craters littered the ground, ground scarred and broken, shattered by immense powers. Dying embers lit up the cracks in the ground and molten asphalt was slowly settling back into solid form.

Dust, debris, blood, bones, destroyed cars, all manner of trash was spread around in the nearest hundreds of meters. A battlefield of one man, who now halted his fight with himself and drilled his gaze into her. He had to wince his eyes as the full moon behind her was making it hard for him to see any details.

And she smiled at him even more so, and stepped down from the 4th floor roof. Her long legs like spears, they pointed downwards and came fast and deadly, only to land with grace and slight bend of her knees as she hit the ground. She saw him flinch and his powers gather to slow her fall, but she pushed against them as they reached out.

He clenched his fists and started taking measured breaths, his body visibly getting ready for confrontation as he looked at her from top to bottom, and within a moment his mind flashed with recollection of her beauty.

With the gentle wind swaying her hair, and her knee-lenght dress that wrapped around her body, he was once again dumbstruck by what he saw.

„Olga'theru...” He whispered, and the smile that bloomed from her face, and the sparks of joy in her eyes that showed up at the recognition of her almost brought him to his knees.

„Yes! Exactly!” her arms rose up as she spoke, like butterflys wings, her dress followed suit, creating a backdrop for her body that only highlighted the unnatural Allure of it.

His eyes were glued to her, mind shaken by her visage and will under the burden of her beautiful smile, and depthless eyes that promised release. Release from this pent up anger and shame.

„stop...it” he whispered through clenched teeth.

She took a step forward, and with it a weight pressed on his Will, yield, calm down, open up it asked, asked in a way one could not refuse.

He flinched, and subconciously took a step back. She smirked at that and he could feel a feeling of warmness and calm bind him more.

„Stop” he demanded.

„Now, now, why don't you...” She said, and each word she spoke was a promise he yearned to believe, she tried to get closer but was stopped by his build up outburst.

„I SAID STOP IT!” his mind lashed out at the mental cage being forged around him, the tendrils of mental energy barely noticable to him were snapped apart with almost physical force as he expanded the trauma that swirled within his mind, making the air crackle and screams of past be heard.

He had little expierience with mental magic beside his traning with the Avian Lord, but he was told that with how his psyche is mangled and functioning, he could turn it around and use it to fight off such attacks. Wielding it like jagged shards of metal, his own mind hurt from flaying itself to be used against another, he swung maniacly outward.

It was his penance to expierience, his alone. His to bear. He looked at her, spell broken, with seething hatred in his eyes, anger and shame rising as his body started steaming again, flickers of flames glazing his skin in small pops and bursts. The vapor from his body was born of bubbling sweat and blood mixed with grim, it hissed creating a low buzz that emanated from his body.

Even the markings of the Void seemed to yield to the moment, as if angared that someone dared to influnece their host, they relented their never stopping onslaught on his mind so the flames of Primordial Chaos could fan the flames of his anger even more.

She saw his reaction and her smile dropped a bit, and that itself hurt him, she took a step back and lowered her arms a bit. She seemed to shiver, the foreign energy she exuded seemed to retract and the snapped parts latched onto some remnenants of his Storm of Trauma he relased, she took it without a comment.

„Sorry, sorry, I just wanted to help you. You just seemed so distressed, so... burdened.” her words seemed so innocent, so pure. A melody in his ears.

„It is my Burden to bear.” He answered with a scowl. A forced one. His will was shaken, it was starting to crumble.

„Never, fucking, play with my head again or I will end you.” He threatened her, and her smile bloomed even more.

She dissapeared.

„Oh, will you now?” A whisper slithered into his ear, silky smooth and sensual. She stood in the shadow he cast, slighly bent over so her lips could barey graze his ear as she spoke.

With a rapid twist, he turned his body, right arm set ablaze by lightning that burst forth and cut a swath of destruction in a straight line that followed his arms movement. The air screamed as the smell of ozone filled the place, crackling energy burining up the earth it struck, turning it into molten glass.

She was behind him, and effortlesly voulted over the attack, laughing quietly as the lighting blast came inches close to burning her long, velvet hair. The movement was so fluid, so etheral and done with ease, it was almost hypnotising.

Another crack resounded on the mental plane, and a cascade of pain followed.

„I SAID STOP IT!” He yelled as a bubble of fire spun around him and erupted forth, blazing heat burst in the blink of an eye, and a firestorm followed. This time, the subconcious mix of blazing rage and magical inferno seemed to actually hurt the mysterious lady, making her face scowl as the tendrills she encomapssed him with became scorched and tattered.

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They were invisible, yet both could feel them, the projections of mental energy so diffrent from what Luke was used to dealing with. Her mastery over them was leagues above his, and he could somehow feel that while her skills were not on par with the Avian, they were focused in such a diffrent and unique direction that it may as well be a completely new branch of magic to him.

It seemed formless and all encompasing, and what seemed most bizzare to him, it did not hurt.

He knew hurt, he knew pain and how to combat it, react to it.

This was new, and it was unsettling. This was meant to mend rather than break.

As she landed, her scowl flattened out and her mesmerizing, shiny eyes locked with his, making his heart skip a beat.

She extended her long, slender hand and her skin shone in the pale moonlight, and from the shine, a trickle of energy streamed out, turning into a roaring river of light that smashed into Lukas and threatened to drown him, taking his legs from under him and pushing him across parking lot only to smash him against the wall. The torrent of fluid like, light energy was unending and covered him from the neck down, immobilizing him.

She started walking closer, her arm steady just as the magic that she used, and with each step the pressure he felt on his mind increased more and more.

„You are a stubborn one, aren't you? What is it that you are hiding in there? Why not let me in? Just a peak!”. Each step she took closer to him, made his mind tremble. He hated it how much she influenced him, without any effort on her part, his walls were made crumble, feeble.

His Bastion of Mind was being tested. He used to be so sure that the Palace of Trauma he formed would suffice for whatever may come, now he feared it will be torn down in moments. He would become exposed.

He could not allow it.

Releasing an inhuman roar, a bubble once more expanded from his body, and from his mind. Pure desolation made manifest, anger, unyielding, Will given form, it was forged into a barrier impassible even to a creature like her. It pushed her back.

It pushed her away. It pushed everything and anyone away.

The weight of his guilt was a heavy burden, one that could only be proped up by pillars of Will for change, will for redemption. These pillars surrounded him, forming a barrier uncrackable. They pressed down on him, proping up on his mind, covering it, yet bearing down on it too.

„Pillars of Penance” The Tall Lady whispered to herself suprised, the technique was visibly incomplete, yet truly solid. Lack of finesse was excused by the density and honesty passed through the manifestation, even she would need to actually try to break through it.

„What a complex mess you are” some frustration bit into her words as she changed tactics. He stood there, unmoving, power fluctuating around him. His ragged body tore at the seems with rising tides of myriad of energies, his prosthetic cracked loudly as the bones grinded against eachother. His eyes drilled into her, anticipating the next move. His mental energies were a mealstrom of chaos.

Her Allure changed it's purpose, and from calming, it started to draw in, become all encompasing and adding charm to her movement.

She bent down slowly, tracing her palm down her torso, along her hip and gently, her fingers traveled down her leg until her right palm landed flat on the ground, touching upon the shadown she cast.

Her fingers sunk into it, and with a fluid motion, she pulled out a whip made of pure, oily black. It glistened in the light of fires Lukas gave off. The end of the whip trailed slowly behin her hand, until, with a quick snap to the side, it shot out and left the shadows. It cracked so loudly it almost silenced all the noises surrounding them, and with that crack followed a gnarly pain that pushed itself through Lukes body, starting from his ears and radiating through him.

He seized up for a second, and shot forward in response, with a halo of fire behind him, born of a blast that proppeled him towards her.

„ZAPŁON!” the fire cone behind him pushed him with immense force, this one was centered around his back, and had more time to charge up. His body conquered the distance in a blink of an eye, and his prosthetic with sharpened talons of bone was ready to cut her throat.

She side stepped effortlesly, and in the last possible moment, so quickly he couldn't even react.

As he passed through where she stood, he could feel something latch onto his still healing leg, right around the torn ankle. Prickly thorns sank into his hardened flesh and started sizzling.

Next thing he felt was his momentum being stopped, all that power crashing into his internals.

Next, came the turn.

Before he could even hit the ground or reposition, his body was dragged into motion. Eyes wide in suprise, his arms extended forward trying to latch onto anything, yet his surroundings were barren of any portrusions, and with each passing moment were becoming more and more blurry as he was being rotated like a gyroscope, quicker and quicker.

His massive frame was being dragged in the air as freely as a kite, blood started rushing into his head from the gyroscopic force. It sounded like a storm on the sea, all that pounding in his ears, his vision was turning red and going dark.

He could hear her laughing. That melodic laugh.

He tried to fight the forces pressing on her body and looked at her, arms straining to point at her as he clumsily gathered more firepower.

Through the blurr, he saw her pearly white smile and joyous glint in her eyes.

And suddenly she was getting further and further away, her laugh increasing in volume.

Before he could register what happened he crashed throught a nearby building, his back taking the brunt of the damage. The walls came down as his body released from the whips binding acted like a balista bolt. He laid there for a second, confused. The darkness of the room seemed tranquil, the shadows coating the walls seemed almost inviting.

The exhaustion was washing over him, he was ready to allow his conciousness to drift away.

Until he heard the cracking sounds. The whole building groaned, and the shadows parted to show the numerous cracks multiplying and the material cracking under pressure. The integrity of the building was damaged beyond what it could handle.

And it came crashing down, directly on Luke.

The cacophony of 2-stories of stone and concrete crashing on him was almost as painfull as the mass of the building itself. Stone debris drowned him.

In the last possible moment, he raised his guard up and let loose, all the restrictions he placed on himself were released, his will devoured the space around him and the forces that influenced it.

In a manic act of survival he set himself ablaze once more, radiating the light, heat and force through each cell of his body, in a last ditch effort to survive.

From outside, one could see that she stopped laughing after a moment passed and he did not come out. The moment of quiet after he hit the building was prolonging too much for her liking. And as the walls started crumbling, she became concerned, as the building gave way and she could feel her little toy did not manage to escape, anger and worry rose up within her.

With a scowl of concern on her face, she started moving closer. Hurried, yet still measured steps proppelled her forward. With each step, they covered more distance, became more rushed.

Within moments, she stood next to the remains of the collapsed building. Worry creaping into her mind.

„He was not supposed to die. I still need him.” She started to panic, her frivolous toying with him might have ruined her chances.

She felt a tremble. Saw a stone move by itself.

A plum of dust rose up slowly.

More dust followed, more pebbles started trembling on the top of the pile.

She smilled, the corners of her mouth almost reaching her ears as her exposed teeth glimed in the moonlight.

Before her, the mountain of rubble started rumbling, tremors shaking away the pieces of concrete as plums of smoke and heated air started escaping from between the cracks.

She started to chuckle quietly at the sight.

Light started to pierce throught the rubble, to her it almost looked like an X-Ray projected live. Bigger chunks of debris started dislodging themselves from the mass of stone. It started to turn reddder and redder.

With each moment, the scene became more surreal and her chuckling grew louder and louder.

Finally, once the rock pile was trembling madly as if an earthquake was happening, and she could feel the heat and telekinetic forces trying to grab a hold of her body, she burst out into laughter so intense her eyes started tearing up, and she felt the need to cover her mouth with her slender palm.

A bloody, blazing fist punched through the superheated rock on top of the pile, and a pillar of white flames burst into the sky, making the air whine like a kettle full of steam.

With a strugle, another fist, made of white bone and black crystals punched through with extended talons, and ripped the stone plate apart into two.

He pulled himself out of the wreckege, heaving for air, his lungs like bellows of a forge, bringing forth fire with each pump of his muscles. Stumbling towards her, his eyes regained focused as the hold he had over his powers finally loosened. His Will brought to it's limits, and far beyond, while guiding it to prop up the tens of tonnes of the fallen building from crushing him, redirecting the load through his body and burining his way out like a human torch.

Falling to his knees, he finally looked at her again, actually seeing her as a whole. She stood hunched over him, eyes curious and playfull, her slender fingers covering her rosy mouth. The moonlight shined on her hair, and they cascaded down like a waterfall.

They spent a moment between a second and eterninty gazing into each other's eyes, and finally, she broke the silence.

„What a wonderfull mess you are, so much angst, so much anger, so much potential in you!” she seemed to annouce this to the world more than speaking to him.

„Now, have you calmed down? Can we talk now, I think I know how to find the twins you lost.”

Her expression was one of expecting an answer, but it quickly turned to suprise as, as he was trying to get up rapidly once he heard her words, he stumbled and faceplanted into the ground. His body growing cold and unmoving.