She stood with the flames behind her back. A black cloud billowed overhead. Frenzied civilians brushed against her as they fled. She cocked the salvaged rifle in hand, the interrogation cut short by the ignition of the gas main, followed by a several loud booms and flashes. She was free from bondage, but not from duty. Even though she'd consider the populace heretical, there was no better time than the present to show the glory and mighty of the Emperor.

She walked against the flow of foot traffic on the main road, shoving aside civilians with the barrel of the rifle. She felt safe from scrapes, cuts, and bruises with riot gear on her back. She'd feel safer with a larger caliber weapon, but any caliber was better than the nine millimeter pistols her captors usually toted. They weren't prepared for this kind of chaos, and every officer fled the building as the rupturing gas lines weakened the structure.

The farther she went the louder the screams became. She fired into the air, and the wails lowered. She squinted her eyes, looking into the distance. Figures with twitching postures sauntered after the crowd. She picked up her pace into a light jog with the firearm at her hip. Citizens charging her way she shoved aside with the barrel of her gun. Some she shoved to the ground, and as they tried to pull themselves up she marched over them, sometimes driving her heel down on their anxious faces. They were heretics. And although she was glad to do them a favor in His Holy Honor, she spat on whatever pride they tried to impose. Pride was for the faithful, not the infidel.

She stopped as the back end of the crowd hurried by, hands flailing while they cried in terror. She looked back on the week with embarrassment. There were things - dreams, fantasies, and attitudes - that she regretted. She needed cleansing, and so did the world, and what better way of cleansing herself of the vile filth that had entered her than by destroying this likewise sudden filth having come in her way.

Before she could gather her focus and aim upon one of the offenders, the authorities came to her side. Like the unholy horde approaching, there were too many for her to even spray at. Still, she was ready to take on a sudden, unpleasant change of situation. She had confidence, unlike before where she was naked, to take them on. But to her disappointment they took arms beside her with their pathetic pistols.

In their eyes was a familiarity for those approaching. She guessed they were neighbors, friends, and even family members. It was this sympathetic familiarity that held not only their gazes but their trigger fingers as well. They stared at the approaching horde with confusion and agony.

Having no connection to the inhabitants of this world, she aimed from the hip at the closest approaching foe, shambling in an unnatural, twitching manner. His eye sockets glowed a deep red, the balls having been there missing, probably popped out by whatever possessed him. But before she could pull the trigger, he crouched low and then threw himself into the air, jumping higher than any man she had seen jump before without the aid of a jetpack.

Immediately she unloaded the magazine into the airborne body, embers and ash flaking from it as each bullet tore at it. He plummeted to the ground, exploding in a blast of fluorescent pink as he slammed head first into the pavement. A small mechanical scarab popped from the crushed corpse and tried to get away, but with precision her rifle tore away at it, surpassing its self-repair systems and causing it to explode in a similar flurry in front of her.

The guards looked at her, stunned. She could have made a long, heroic speech, but instead she settled for, "Purge the lot!" followed by her emptying another magazine into another leaping foe.

One guard recognized his wife from among the defiled crowd, and ran towards her. The Inquisitor turned her aim to him, and as he embraced his beloved she unloaded with the utmost prejudice every bullet made available in that magazine. The rounds tore through husband and wife, and before she could flay him with her clawed fingers they both exploded in a bloody flaming fury, their howls sending chills down the spines of his fellow officers.

The attack was on, with the approaching menace leaping into the air at the defenders. The Inquisitor backpaced, unloading whatever ammunition was immediately available to her. Bodies hit the ground in front of her, bursting open and unleashing what bionic insect menace had found its way inside.

Of the humanoid foes she defeated, some of their machine parasites made their ways to the frenzied line of guards, firing away in futility with their tiny caliber pistols while crying out how unprepared they were for this.

She tried blasting away the parasites making their way up the guard's legs towards opens orifaces, the favorite being in the guard's pants. Yet her efforts were in vain, as she ended up wounding the officers and making it easier for the parasites to enter them.

With the situation escalating, she abandoned all sympathy for these ignorant local law enforcement agents and emptied into them to rip limbs, shatter joints, and cut muscle tissues around the thighs and calves.

Even so, there were too many parasites and transformed hosts for her to shoot at, and soon she followed after the crowd, occasionally turning back to drop another one of the pursuers.

In the corner of her eye she spotted a group of black robed individuals crying out in a strange tongue holding open canisters. She strayed from the crowd, set her gun to semi-auto, and followed a winding path through alleyways and gardens until she flanked to their rear. She opened the window of a nearby home, entered, and climbed to the third story, then opening a window facing the back of the group. She trained her iron-sights, switching from head to head. Her foot closed the door behind her and kicked a chair against it. The wood on wood thud was masked with the echoing gunfire, explosions, and screaming coming in from all directions.

She looked back through her iron-sights. She steadied her breath and blinked. When she could feel her heartbeat slow, she adjusted her rifle. She pulled the trigger. On the street three heads popped, tomato juice and bubble gum splattering in all directions. The rest turned ducked and ran, and all but one were pinned by consecutive shots.

The magazine clinked against the floor and a fresh one she slammed into the rifle. She ripped back the bolt handle and aiming again. Casings rattled against the floor as she continued to empty the magazines into the persons of interest, sparing only one who clung to a container with all might, still shouting out in an indiscernible tongue.

She exited the building, switching the rifle to auto and remaining vigilant for the one hooded figure that escaped. She came a few dozen paces close to the dying man, and took cover around a corner. She heard the foot steps and mumbling of another, and someone saying "thanks". She turned out of corner and spotted the unpinned target and blew his face wide open, strawberry juice splattering over the dying hooded man.

She approached him, the rifle's iron sights an eye on him, her other two eyes looking around. She rolled him over. He clung tightly to the canister. Barrel pressed against his head, she asked, "What is your goal?"

"They're coming."

"Who?"

He chuckled.

She tried prodding his arms off the canister. He hugged it tighter. "They're coming!"

She shot the tender portion of his arm and it fell to one side. "Cut the pronoun game. Use a proper noun or I will blow your skull open and search for 'who' inside."

"The ancient ones, they come from their tombs!"

"When where why and how."

He chuckled again.

She responded with lead between his eyes and pulled the canister from his arms. She flipped it over and shook, but nothing came out. It was empty. She picked up the nearby lid, sealed the cylinder shut, and carried it under her arm.

Bodies before her, behind her, and to her sides, and the city burning around her, she shouldered her rifle and walked down the street.

She came across an intersection where this road met the main road. She turned onto it, walking by bodies and smoldering wrecks. She made her way back to the guard's stench of dead corpses and molten metal stung her nostrils as she approached her former prison. She walked up the stone steps and past the towering pillars, into the lobby.

In the lobby bodies were strewn over floor and furniture. and towards the center of the building the flames still consumed, roaring, growling, and hissing as the Inquisitor overlooked the destruction.

Through a labyrinth of offices, hallways, and utility corridors she found her way to the chamber containing the "cells" and recognized one of her old confinements. Others were toppled from the blast, crushed by fallen support beams, or still stalwart in their position, holding unfortunate souls inside. She passed through this room with weapon drawn. Pools of blood stained the floor, some dried, others steaming in the heat.

She proceeded down the corridor at the other end of the vast room. She followed signs reading, "Communications". A few minutes passed and she came across metal doors, locked. She looked around at the hall, sweat still dripping from the intense heat. She turned back and explored the corridor further until she found the chief guard. He sat there and looked at her. She reached into his pocket and pulled out a keycard. In his trembling hands he held a screwdriver and a pin. She took both. He opened his mouth to speak, and all that came out was a sign of agony. Her gun cracked, relieving him of his misery.

Back at the doors marked, "Communications", she waved the card by the reader.

"System malfunction," a voice said.

She tossed the card aside and pried the reader from the wall with the screwdriver. Using the pin, she bound two wires together, resulting in a few clicks from the doors. She pulled them aside and entered the room, rifle at the ready.

Slumped over the controls was a passed out operator. She threw him off. He hit the floor and groaned. She aimed for his head and with a single round spilled the raspberry cranium jam all over the floor.

He fingers tapped away, and a printout of an encrypted message spat out from the side of the machine. She ripped the paper out and read over it.

Four strangers at address 2584 32 25 1287. Awaiting your interrogation results and advice.

She would have to find a means of decoding the coordinates and finding transportation. She left the comms room and made her way to various remaining armories and the cafeteria in the headquarters to stock up on ammunition, food, and other supplies for a long trip - her questions weren't going to answer themselves.

She stepped on the fallen front doors above the stone stairs, rifle over her back, snub-nosed shot pistol, grenades, and one of those cursed nine millimeter pistols that could neither kill or hurt the new enemy, only slow them. She'd find comfort in a team, but there was no one else on this planet she was sure she could trust. With a heavy sigh she descended the steps, sun sinking behind the black pillars of smoke before her.