Resonance//Dissonance [BOOK 2 in progress]

Luke shut the door of the basement in The Real with a loud clang. The lock gritting loudly through rust as the key snapped it shut. As he turend around, he strapped the harness on him a bit tighter, it had to be snug.

In the shadows of the stairwell, there, she stood, tall, radiant, yet blended with the dark. 'Theru eyed him with curiosity.

„What's with the get up?" she asked, pointing her lithe fingers at his new attire.

„Something neccesary to get the job done well, and quietly." he said, the balaklava muffling his already low toned voice into a hum.

„You do know we can shroud you in magic, make you more than unnoticable?" the question hung in the air.

„Yeah, maybe, but this is more natural to me, and The Veil won't be tugging on me so much, it may not seem like it, but it does bother me." his face twitched and winced as he remembered when his skin was being separated by the coarse touch of judgment the Veil passed onto him for breaking it's rules.

She chuckled, hiding her laugh behind her palm.

„Bother, he says, being flayed and scorched raw bothers him, he says." barely did she get her words through, chuckling and grabbing her sides.

He just shrugged his shoulders and zipped up his jersey tighter to his neck, stepping past her.

„Come on, you are driving, we got a job to do."

She took in his sight as he made distance, silent and lost in wonder.

She followed him, steps echoing with determination.

Luke seemed diffrent to her now, more shut off, distant. Somehow, the man that was still unable to conduct even the most basic of psychomancy shut his outer thoughts from a well versed adept, and yet still, she could feel his mind shift and contort to some internal stimuly, one she was not even aware of existing before. It worried her.

The drive was silent and uneventful. The radio was dead, the beat up car was barely able to drive without going dead, they both knew it will probably abond it after this job so they paid it no mind. What 'Theru focused on more and more were the shifts in the mind of her passenger.

It was so bizzare.

The closer they got to the White Stone District, the more stiff and rigid his thoughts became. She could feel that the flames that burned before were doused, throttled unnaturally,

No, not doused, focused. Focused beyond the realm of their state, and from a coalescent energy, they became dense matter, a cage onto intself. An expression of total hold, control over that, which was untaimable.

The rage turned to purpose, morality shattered into pieces, determination honed into a blade that cut through any doubt.

By the time of their arrival on the outer sites of the District Luke's mental scape was unrecognizable, and 'Theru, for the first time in a long while was left speachless.

Even the air around him seemed thicker, more stale. And, as he pulled down his ski mask, covering his tightly nit lips, she saw how dense and truly lifeless his gaze became.

Since she saw him, that gaze of his unnarved her, and it resembled a vortex that sucked in the light, a depthless well that only served as a dumping spot for all of the worst the world could offer. Indifrrent. Uncaring.

It was nothing compared to what she saw now.

The sight chilled her,a being that was supposed to feed on mental disturbance, but somehow this seemed foreign, too...predisposed, too practiced.

And as he checked the blades sharpeness that were stuck to his harness, it clicked to her.

This was not the first time, it was a practiced protocol. Whatever he did to his mind, it was done many times before, before he crossed The Veil of the Magical World.

It brought tremors to her body.

A mortal, a filthy mortal unaware of the intricacies of the Outer Realms could hold so much sway over his own mind, to limit, crash and dissect it in a way that it became modular.

And that was before, now? Now his scope of reach, even while still unskilled, was monstrous to behold from a mind mage's point of view.

A living puzzle box with pieces shifting to his will.

And it clicked just as they arrived.

She extended her Mental Bridge across to him, and without a physical response, he allowed her to connect, he himself focused on taking in the surroundings, the briefing spread open on his legs, piles of printed out paper messily orbiting in front of him attached to his Telekinesis.

Composed, he was comparing the street leading to the old 3-story building that supposedly was being kept as a stash house for a big shipment.

As he did that, 'Theru parsed deeper into his mind, it wasn't a time for a full dive into his Mental Scape, and she didn't need to do such drastic mesures now. As they became closer, she got a clearer overview of his mind, a birds eye view, one could call it.

And she was stumped at the sight.

„Where are the raging infernoes? Where is the blaze?" these questions struck her mind as she peered in closer than she intended. Atop the rigid Pillars of Penance still stood a castle, but one so much diffrent. It was static, solid, covered in rolling shadows of The Void she could feel would wound her on levels fatal to her, she had to stay at a distance.

„Stay behind, don't interefere, shadow me at most, I need to do this alone, without distractions." his words rang out in some far, far distance in her mind, and as the sound of car doors being slammed brought her out of stupor, she looked as his looming back getting away, and lost in thought, her body turned to black tar that splashed into the dark nooks of the car and slipped beyond the realms so that she could stay close to him and peer in better into his mind.

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The car door groaned open and Luke stepped out into the White Stone District. The road beneath his boots was cobblestone, uneven, slick with a sheen of gray rain that never quite left this place. It smelled of wet stone, rusted pipes, and the sour rot of too many lives pressed into crumbling walls.

To his left, the old bones of the city loomed — three-hundred-year-old brickwork, blackened by soot and patched with concrete scars. To his right rose the concrete blocks, ten stories of post-Soviet despair, poured thick and left to crumble, balconies sagging like broken jaws. Some windows were barred, some shattered, some filled with sheets for curtains. Nothing here was whole. Nothing was cared for.

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Luke walked slow, steady, eyes forward. His body carried the weight of routine, but his mind stripped itself bare with each step. Doubt — gone. Mercy — gone. He closed those doors inside himself like snuffing out candles in a long hallway. Every flicker of warmth sealed behind blackened glass. What remained was cold precision.

The objective was all.

His senses sharpened with the kill's promise. The world no longer appeared as scenery but as surfaces, cover, shadows, avenues of attack. The shifting rain-washed glow of a streetlamp wasn't light, it was timing. The cracked brick under his hand wasn't texture, it was leverage.

Luke tuned himself like a blade. There was no need for hesitation, no need for conscience. Both were luxuries he couldn't afford. He stripped down to directive and execution — forward, breach, eliminate.

Ahead, the stash house waited. Old brick at the base, gray concrete stacked on top, like the city's bones had been broken and set wrong. A steel gate barred the second floor. Men inside waited to sell poison. Luke let out a breath, steady, final.

By the time his boot left the cobblestones for the first step of the building, Luke turned into his old self, the one shaped by his father.

The one he hated so much.

The first floor was quiet in the way of poor families trying to stay invisible. Mattresses laid out across cracked tiles, children curled up under threadbare blankets, mothers pretending to sleep while their eyes tracked every sound. Luke's boots made no noise as he passed, his frame hunched, his shoulders sagging — the image of a man broken by want. He wore the mask well. He'd lived it.

At the end of the hall was the gate. Steel frame, cheap reinforcements, chain welded on the inside. He rapped on it, knuckles soft, irregular — the knock of someone already shaking.

"...Money," came the voice inside. Not a question. A habit.

A slit opened. A hand pushed through, greedy fingers waiting.

They were met with an iron grip and a deadly stare.

Before any noise could be made, he yanked on the arm and pulled the man into the doors crevice, squashing him into the door and as his face snagged on the chain, ugly, yellow skin pulled taught tightly enough to reveal the rotten teeth and stink filled breath, a sliver of metal parted his revealed throat, and with a twist, released a fountain of blood, the crimson rain staining Luke's clothes.

He did not even dein the man enough to look into his eyes as light left them, he dropped his arm and heaved against the doors, with a solid slam the chain broke off the frame and the doors slammed open, startling those sitting at the hall, playing cards.

The flickering bulb painted everything in sickly light. Men stirred — one with a bat, another with a machete, a third already fumbling for a blade.

The bat came down first. Luke didn't move away; he moved through. He surged forward, punch-dagger leading, and drove it into the man's chest — high, between the ribs. The blade slid deep, kissing lung. Luke twisted hard, the steel grinding, until the ribs themselves locked the weapon in place. Then he ripped downward, tearing the flesh as the man screamed, his body folding around the steel. Luke dragged him down by the hilt, spine buckling, and stomped the back of his neck. Vertebrae cracked like dry branches. The dagger stayed buried, locked in the ribcage. It was spent.

The machete whistled low, the wide arc clumsy but heavy. Luke dropped into a crouch, rolling under the swing. The karambit was already in his hand. A single slice opened the tendons behind the attacker's knee. The man staggered, leg buckling. Luke rose behind him, hooked an arm across his waist, and heaved backward. The suplex slammed him into the floorboards, the air in his lungs exploding in a hollow grunt. Before the body even settled, Luke twisted, steel flashing. The karambit cut across the throat, hot blood spraying against his forearm.

Bootsteps thundered closer. Another came, rushing with desperate speed. Luke didn't wait. He shot forward, every muscle coiled. The karambit drove upward in an inverted uppercut, burying itself under the man's jaw, the hooked tip splitting bone and palate. The man froze, eyes rolling wide, then dropped limp when Luke tore the blade free.

Behind them, another voice shouted. Luke turned, low stance, shoulders squared. His chest rose slow, controlled, while the corridor filled with the stink of sweat, blood, and Blitz smoke. The bulb overhead flickered again, light dancing over the red-streaked walls.

It all happenned so fast, so decisevly that 'Theru barely had the time to register it, she was stunned. She knew this man was dangerous, and she knew that he held a dark past, but this? She did not take him for a killer before, a battle crazed maniac with a penchant for violence, for sure, but not a murderer.

She was wrong.

What was even more peculiar to her was that all of this was done using only mortal means, no spells, not even extra strenght or speed, this was just calculated, well practiced behaviour ingrained into a broken man.

Man, that was about to break other men for their sins.

He strolled forward, with a quick, but controlled tempo. The doors to his right opened up suddenly just as he passed next to them, the man launging forward with his arms stretched outward almost managed to catch Luke, if it wasnt for the sudden swoosh and everything going dark as pain blossomed from his face.

Not even slowing down after the karambit blade blinded the man, digging into the eyeballs like butter, across the nose's cartlidge and through the other eye, Luke stepped forward as the man fell to the ground clawing at his weeping face, screaming.

The screams brought out 5 more people from the rooms on that floor, each one of them visibly under the influence of The Blitz.

The discoloration went beyond their eyes, the skin turned patchy, unnatural, and their bodies twitchy and ready to pounce.

Luke hid the carambit and switched it for an army bayonet knife in one hand, and as the attackers started moving closer towards him, he swung it slowly in front of himself, blade glistening as it cut through air like a steel snake.

The attackers focused on it, focused so much that the first man didn't even register the throwing knife piercing his chest untill his knees buckled two steps after he was hit, with his heart pierced he silently went to the ground, never to rise again.

After the first knive, he threw a second, but the trick was already used up, and they were aware of the danger, the second shot missed but managed to disperse them.

With a suprising acceleration, Luke shot forwards to the closest man on his left and as if striking with a spear, drove the bayonet knife between the mans raised guard and felt the blade scrape the bone as he hit his neck and luckily wedged the knife between the vertabree. With a twist, windpipe became a sieve and a spine was broken, spinal fluid mixing with the blood as the blade left the body with a slash to block the machete attack, the now dead mans companion unleashed.

Luke's arm held, if barely, the users held immense strenght, much more than the piggy in the club before, and enough to push him back, and his body, while weaker in The Real, was still modified and stronger than a mortals.

As he directed the blade downwards and to the outside with a sweep, he launched an elbow with his right from under them, sharp as an axe, he smashed the chin of the attacker, with some added momentum using magic, Luke felt the bone shatter into little chunks and heard teeth crack to pieces as a gush of blood burst from the man's lips.

Eyes rolled backwards, he fell as his legs gave out and sprawled across the ground.

The last man, stopped in his tracks just steps away from Luke and quickly hopped few steps back, gaining some distance.

„Who are you, bastard! What do you want?!" the drug addict screamed as he waved a metal pipe frantically.

Luke switched the blade to his right hand.

„Where are you getting this-" he pointed at the end of the hallway, where few boxes of glass vials filled with iridescent liquid laid. „-from?"

Something in his voice carried a tone of finality, cold brutality made promise, a resonant note of punishment if faced with disobiedience.

Apparently, the note was too subtle, easily drowned out by the rushing power of The Blitz thundering through the mans skull.

„You would like to know that, you fag! Come, COME! GET SOME!" spit flew as the man screamed and rushed luke with a side sweep.

Stepping into the range he dashed forward, propelled by his Doctrine of Hollow Pulse to just barely miss getting hit by the pipe and instead, by the forearm of the man. If he was suprised by the sudden launch, Luke could not tell, as his forehead drove deeply into his face, blocking both of their view.

The sound of skulls crashing was loud, like bells rung, both men disconnected from each other, Luke with a graceful back-step, and the other man by falling on his side, clutching his face in seach of his broken, indented nose and missing teeth, now resting in pieces inside of his stomach as he swallowed them in shock.

He was rolling around, barely coherent, trying to scare Luke off with threats.

„I'm going to kill you! They are going to kill you! You think you can just do this!? YOU ARE A DEAD MAN!" he yelled, and yelled as Luke gazed down on him

He could feel 'Theru's proding touch even now, but he knew what needed to be done so he hardened his psyche even more and slowly bent down for the pipe laying next to the man, eyes focused on him, looking out for any sneak attack.

Nothing came, as the man rolled onto his stomach and slowly, tried to stand up as a cascade of red blood dropped onto the rotten floor boards.

One, quick smash against the lower back cracked like a dropped brick, and the man tumbled to his side again, twisting and cursing as he couldn't choose which part of his aching body to grab.

The next one was worse, Luke actually put some strengh into this one, he reached high, and dropped the pipe down like a guilotine, in dug so deeply into the knee it was almost hidden in it.

Bones broke, tendons snapped, blood vessels burst and the man howled. Oh, he howled like a dying pig, screams that would make you think he was being flayed resounded, and he wet himself as Luke yanked out the pipe and tossed it to the side.

He could see the man was manic now, crying, asking. „Why? Fuck, why? Oh god, oh god." and as the man was shaking from agony, Luke crouched next to him and asked calmly.

„Where are you getting this from, The Blitz?" and still, no answer that would satisfy him was given. Only begging, begging for mercy, for this pain to stop.

Since the man had issues with his hearing, Luke grabbed another knife and as the man's hands rose in defence he kicked him just powerful enough to flip him, the shock and movement bringing enough agony so the man's hand jerked in spasms.

And he pulled on his ear, with enough force to tear it at the base, and followed the tear with a knife for a clean cut.

„Maybe now you will be able to hear me" Luke said loudly, not enough to scream, just enough to break through the cacophony of squeals the man was making. He tossed him over once again and put a knee on his chest. His big, pale palm wrapping around the mans face, over his broken nose, and pushed it deeper in, making the man scream and toss like a crazed bull.

As soon as he saw the blade milimiters from his eye, the blade nestled on Luke's finger that rested just under his ocular bone, the man froze and tried to be as still as possible.

„Good, we wouldn't want to blind you now, would we?" the man couldn't even see Luke now, he was forced to look up, with only the cracked, dirty ceiling and the glint of the blade in view.

„For the last time, where did you get this from?" and as he said it, he started slowly tracing the blade on the eyebrow of the man, opening up without any resistance and making flesh part.

„FINE ! FINE ! I WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING!"

And from that point, the man sung like a cannary, he told Luke as much as he knew, most of which was useless. He did point him towards 2 other store houses, so for that, Luke allowed for a little mercy.

When he guessed he could learn nothing more that would be of use, he quickly and decisevly pushed the blade through the eye and jerked it violently to scramble the brain, as quickly and painlessly as he could.

Standing up, he dusted himself off and saw 'Theru coales from the shadows, her form revealed from blobs of inky darkness that saturated untill the beautiful woman came through, her face stern and with a look of worry.

He pointed towards the pile of Blitz, „take care of this please, take it with us and look for any more hidden stashes. I need to finish this" and without waiting for response, he turned back and started finishing the beaten men. Quick, precise and in total dissociation, mechanichal movements harvested lifes as if killing cattle.

'Theru bit her lip to remain silent and did what was told, once they were finished, she walked with him, and made sure the spell she set on the people living here would shroud their memories.

After making sure no cameras were hidden, and all the stash of diffrent drugs and money was emptied, Luke gazed at the slaughter he commited and felt...

Indiffrent to it.

They left the building, and got into the car. Their drive home was silent.