The Guild of the Forsaken

CHAPTER 10 - Forever Hold Your Peace

!TW: Blood and descriptions of torture!

Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio, L.V

November 19th 2022

BEIJING

The city was bright with sorrow.

A dark plague was upon the bustling town, hidden within carefully crafted smiles and green-eyed envy. In Beijing, where the Court lay in wake, a careful plan is constructed to cleanse the disease.

By any means necessary.

Flashing lights provide the backdrop for their hotel suite.

The streets were teaming with life. Thousands of people moving up and down the crowded pavements, each heading in their own directions with their own desires.

A week they had been in Beijing.

A week they had spent planning and sightseeing making sure each one of them had a map of the city ingrained in their brains. Lists of party guests and curious people lined the jade green walls of the hotel suite. Marinette had chosen the room. He presumed she picked this one for the privacy it provided. The gorgeous view of the city was an added bonus.

The melodies that Luka has been able to hear have been beautiful. Orchestras of harmonic sound filled his eardrums every time they went outside.

Pulled out of his daydreaming Luka realises that he had spent the last hour trying to figure out how to tie his bowtie. Who even wears bowties anymore? Luka has no clue. If it was up to him, they would be illegal.

His hands weren't used to the motion. Growing up he was never exposed to high society, never had the need to wear a tux or fancy suit. The most he had done was use a clip-on tie, but even that was for a Halloween costume.

His hands were much more suited to the strings of a guitar. The callouses on his fingers were literal representations of the endless hours he poured into his music.

Earlier Chloé had 'asked' him to dress properly. Not a t-shirt or jeans in sight. He wasn't even allowed his leather jacket. Luka tried to argue that he would be wearing his transformation above the clothes anyway. That sound and reasonable argument was met with a harsh glare and a smack across the head.

Luka lets out a deep sigh in an attempt to relieve his stress. With one last pitiful attempt that ends with him nearly strangling himself. He decides its time to give up on the lost cause.

Leaving the knotted mess on the floor he stands and saunters over to the balcony doors to call Marinette inside. She had been out there for hours, earlier as soon as they had arrived back from lunch, she had pushed through everyone not uttering a word and made a bee line for the balcony a small bag swinging from her shoulders.

No one dared stop her.

Pausing he receives a message from Chloé through their hive mind to, and he quotes 'Drag Mari's thick ass back inside, Max has practically been bouncing off of the walls. I don't know how much more I can take.'

Luka laughs manically. Max could be a pain when he was...determined. He was also famous for being paranoid. Luka was never quite sure how many back up plans he had for each mission. If he were to hypothesize or place a bet, he would put a lot of money on the theory that for each back up plan there was a multitude of sub plans within it.

And then there was Nino. Luka sighs he loves his best-friend he really does but the boy could be a bit dense. He also had the attention span of a toddler.

If it wasn't music or Alya, Nino did not care.

They had already been over the plan with only Max and Marinette truly knowing the depth and number of contingencies they had set up. Luka was sure that the hotel room itself was littered with traps and magic that would be activated when they left for the mission, if they weren't already.