Lieutenant Blaine Thomas Ackland, lovingly called Lieutenant Blaze by his men for his almost pyromaniac tendencies, stared down at the paper in his hands as he strode down the long hall. On the way men would move out of his way, stop, and salute. He was a fairly popular officer and had earned the respect of the men under his command. Each time he would look up from his paper and give a polite nod in return, acknowledging those he passed. Running a hand through messy red-blonde hair he re-read the last line of the missive and frowned darkly. Droy, his younger brother, had gone missing two days ago and he'd only just now received word. A tight knot of worry had wound it's way through his chest and he felt as though a heavy weight was bearing down on him. The police had been informed but it seemed they thought the teen had just run away. Their father had not been happy to hear that. He could just hear it now, the man yelling at them in a barely contained battlefield voice that his son was not that kind of man.

To be honest if he and his brother hadn't been caught pulling pranks and doing stupid kid stuff he might have thought the little blonde could do no wrong. He was what the kids had called a 'goody-two-shoes' back in primary school. But Blaine knew him. Droy would never worry their parents, or him. Especially not with their mother slowly getting worse. He cared about other people. Sometimes too much. He'd even forgiven his bullies for the many hurts they'd caused and stood between them and other kids before. It usually ended up with him having to be rescued because he didn't want to fight anyone in case he hurt them by mistake. That kind of person didn't just vanish because he was 'under pressure by his family and school.'

So what had happened? Had the Mutation Retention Bureau gotten their hands on him? They were a sneaky bunch of bastards but they were supposed to be the good guys. Letting people like Blaine continued on as a soldier but keeping dangerous ab-humans locked up for public safety. Hell, he'd helped them bag a serial killer who could control shadows like they were an extension of himself. Droy though, he was a healer. They'd have no real reason to take him.

So focused on his inner thoughts he failed to notice the danger immediately. Beneath his feet a strange black circle appeared on the floor. A sudden tug and it felt as if his navel had dropped through his feet as he was inexplicably unable to move. Looking down in horror he found a gaping black hole had opened underneath him and long black tendrils slowly climbing up his body. With a cry of surprise he reached for his pistol but a long rope of the black substance whipped around his arm, clasping onto him painfully. Young men and women rounded the corner, eyes wide and weapons in hand as they watched one of their lieutenants being dragged into the black mass. Yelling orders at them to shoot the black protrusions he could see the sheer terror on their faces and knew he was doomed. None of them had ever handled the supernatural or paranormal like he had. If only he could reach his own firearm he might be able to escape but it was pinned between his body and more of the black goop. As it began to cover his face he continued to struggle and yell. A hellish cold burning into his skin as he was pulled down deeper and deeper. Then everything went black.

After what felt like forever in an instant his world seemed to snap back into perfect clarity and he stumbled on weakened legs. Strange chanting reached his ears as the last of the tar-like substance retreated and left him standing in the center of some bizarre arcane looking circle. At first his mind was too disoriented to make out what was around him, his body still trembling from the oddness of his sudden abduction. With mounting horror and disgust he began to make out the corpses of people strung up around him, much like a pig at the local butchers. They had been cut open from sternum to pelvis and their intestines were used to carefully form the outer ring of the circle he was now standing in the center of. The wetness of the red lines suggested they were written in blood. The smell of iron, acrid smoke, burning hair, and offal made him choke and gag. The chanting stopped abruptly as he began to cough, one hand going to his mouth to hold back the bile that rose in the back of his throat. God, he was going to be sick.

The crazed looking murder cult began to murmur amongst themselves. Eyes watering he looked up at them as they rose from their places in the darkened room, panic starting to build in his chest. If they'd murdered all these people and staged them like this he had no doubt they would dispose of him in a similar fashion. One of them pointed to something on the floor and shrieked in an ungodly way that made the hair of his arms and back of the neck stand on end. The others began to squabble amongst themselves before they finally turned their focus on him. Reaching for jagged knives they threw themselves at him with horrible screams of rage. Pulling out his pistol he shot the first one in the head, not taking any chances. Seeing another at the corner of his eye he pulled out his trusty ka-bar. It was a gift from his father upon his graduation of military school. It had seen him through a lot of bad situations. Jamming it into the eye of an enemy that had literally thrown themselves at him he twisted before ducking the swing of a nasty looking… halberd? Christ, he was in the pit now.

After killing at least thirteen of them with his pistol he was beginning to run out of ammo. The glock only had seventeen rounds of nine-millimeter ammo and he only had one spare magazine. There were at least a hundred of these crazed murderers, definitely not enough to go around. Breaking kneecaps and wrists didn't seem to stop these guys either as they threw themselves at him again and again, only going down if he shot them in the head, broke their neck, or severed a major artery. Sweat poured down his back as he fought for his life, wishing there was a significant source of fire that he could exploit. 'Aw hell.' He thought to himself. 'Time to bring out my secret weapon.'

It took a moment to get the gland working but once stimulated his mouth began to fill with fluid, stickier and thicker than saliva. Spitting it into the face of an assailant it took a moment before it began to burn, eating at the fanatic's skin. He'd taken great pains to keep his peculiarities a secret from the world, with the exception of the MRB. But in a situation like this it was kill or be killed. He had no intention of laying down and dying. Spying a still burning candle he dodged behind it and spat the fluid through the flame. The liquid caught fire and covered another lunatic, who began to stagger around screaming.

Someone grabbed him from behind, intent on dragging him to the ground. Slamming his elbow into their face he slipped from the man's grasp and slashed his neck with the knife. Warm blood splashed across his front as the sounds of something crashing through wood reached his ears. 'Bloody hell, don't tell me there are more of these freaks?' Turning franticly toward the new noise he spied men in military green and felt a surge of hope. Another murder cultist leapt at him, hoping to catch him off guard. Bringing the muzzle of his pistol up he sighted the enemy as they reached the apex of their leap and fired one shot between the eyes. Glancing back at the almost surprised faces of the military guys he yelled back at them; "well don't just bloody stand there!" Apparently one of them had heard him as they brought out some sort of weapon and aimed it toward the crazed cultists. Suddenly fire bloomed from the end of it and Blaine grinned. Finally, something was going right!

Diving over a cultist he rolled across the ground and came up closer to the soldier manning the flamethrower. "Pardon me, gents." He said, bringing up his hand. It took little concentration and effort to commandeer the fire and turn it on the cultists. Where the flamethrower could only spew fire in a straight line he used all those beautiful flames to swirl around the room in a deadly tornado of pain and death. The light glinted off his red-blonde hair and deep orange eyes as the screaming finally began to die down. Putting his hand down he realized he had used his… ability, for lack of a better term, in front of others. Gripping his pistol tight in one hand he turned to look at the operator of the strange flamethrower, who wasn't looking at him half as oddly as he ought to be.

A man in a striking uniform, something between a gothic priest and a medieval knight, stalked forward as the rank and file moved out of his way. Speaking at him in a calm yet professional tone the man motioned at him to lower his weapon. But the words were unintelligible. Soldiers swept past him and began checking the bodies to ensure they were all dead, while Blaine stood there in confusion. With the adrenaline beginning to wear off the sickness and panic from before rose up from his twisted guts. His fist clenched around the gun in his hand as he tried to stay standing and not vomit all over the floor. Seeing how distressed he was the man seemed to focus on him harder than before, his eyes striking and cold as they began to glow. A moment later the man's eyes went wide in confusion. He said something again but it was clear Blaine didn't understand a word of it. He pursed his lips and spoke to a couple of men in equally odd, gothic, clothes. If it wasn't for the fact that they were torching the crazy cultists and had men in military clothing accompanying them he probably would have assumed they were part of the satanic death cult he'd been kidnapped by.

"Look," he said, stalling the man as he was talking to what were probably his lieutenants, "I don't know how I got here. I'm glad you saved my arse but who the bloody hell are you?" His tone was quite a bit more frustrated than he had intended but there wasn't much he could do about that. He was soaked with sweat, exhausted, disoriented, and covered in gore with a smattering of ash. All he wanted right now was a shower and a nap.

For whatever reason the men looked at him blankly, as if they were wholly unimpressed, before they began talking to each other again in hushed tones. With a sigh he tended to his weapons. Might as well make sure they were in good working order while the strangers figured out what they were going to do with him. Besides, it was better than thinking about the horror he'd just witnessed. When he was satisfied that his gun and knife were fine he put them both away. It seemed like the men had come to some sort of agreement on something. Coming forward one of them spoke at him slowly. He listened carefully and was able to make out certain patterns of words. Wait… was that Latin? Weird, but lucky. He'd taken a few years of Latin back in the Academy, it was a bit of a side interest to him.

"Sequi mihi. Non veniam ad te nocere. Salvus eris." Something about following and maybe safety? Or possibly salvation. So they were offering to help him, then. A long sigh left him and he nodded tiredly. "Tu… me.. sequere?" He said, almost as a question. Honestly it had been a few years since he'd had to actively speak Latin. The men looked slightly taken aback but didn't turn hostile. Taking a few steps, intent on following the gothic knight-priests he suddenly felt a wave of nausea hit him. His vision blurred horribly and the ground seemed to come up to meet him suddenly. Guess he had only been delaying the inevitable.

[POV Argenti]

As Inquisitor Argenti Vesalius of the Ordos Malleus watched in confused fascination the man who had been fighting the heretical deamon cult alone suddenly pitched sideways as his legs fell out from under him. Surprised by this one of the planet's soldiers reached out and caught him before he could slam into the floor in a dead faint. Perhaps whatever power he had used to force the flames to his will had caught up to him, or he may have been exhausted from the fight. It made little to no sense that a 'normal' man would choose to take on an entire cult by himself, especially as ill equipped as he was. The bright orange eyes and red-blonde hair were not enough to condemn the man as something unnatural but he was far from normal. "What has you so on edge, Inquisitor Vesalius?" Asked one his men, dipping his head in a sign of respect as he spoke. The man looked down at the former soldier coolly. "Do any of the PDFs recognize this man?" Glancing over at the stranger the looked thoughtful for a moment before slinking off. When he returned it was with the leader of the Planetary Defense Forces. "I know every man in the militia, and I've never seen him before in my life." He looked nervous, as he should. The Inquisition was not an organization to be taken lightly. There was something else he wasn't saying, Argenti could sense it at the forefront of his mind. But he delved no deeper. All he wanted at the moment was to ensure the soldier was not lying and finish burning this filthy place to the ground.

"What shall we do with him?" Turning to glance at his sole female acolyte, Lyesha, Argenti thought deeply on her question. "Take him with us. He has some peculiarities that need further investigating." The raven haired acolyte nodded in acquiescence. "You there, come with me." She motioned toward the soldier holding the stranger and the man quickly raced to catch up with her as she turned on her heel and walked back the way she'd come.

Argenti observed the scene for a few moments longer, still floored by what he had seen. The man had controlled the flames as if he were a Pyromantik Psyker. On top of that when he had tried to perceive the man's presence he found a gaping void of nothingness. The man was some sort of blank. This seemed impossible but he had witnessed it with his own eyes. Leaving some of his retinue behind to deal with the clean-up he returned to the Incendi Noctium, intent on unraveling this mystery.