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Rating: T 13+

Chapter 4: Unexpected Visitors

The Inquisitors power armor hissed quietly as he and his retinue of stormtroopers moved towards where they thought the cult's temple was. Fortunately, they were in the underhive and could hide in the shadows as they masked their approach. Finally, the building came into sight. It was an old manufactorum with accompanying warehouse that must have been abandoned long ago for it to be degraded so. No light could be seen, what few windows remained were broken, and almost every inch of metal was rusted.

The Inquisitor pulled out his auspex and scanned the immediate area. Finding no sentries, he signaled his retinue and they moved to the nearest entrance. The ceramite doors that had once stood tall and firm was broken in, leaving the entrance wide open. As the Inquisitor and the stormtroopers passed by, they failed to notice the bodies under the remains of the doors. One was nothing but bone above the waist while clothes and tissue remained below it. The other body was cut cleanly in half, yet there was no blood, as if the wounds had been cauterized by the blade itself.

As they moved quietly down the hallway, the Inquisitor felt fear rise in his stomach. Something was not right. We should have run into some kind of sentry or defense grid. Trava'Kal may be a crazed chaos tech-priest, but he was not stupid. As they came to the end of the hall, they nearly gagged at the smell of recent death and carnage coming from the door ahead, which was slightly ajar. The Inquisitor once more pulled out the auspex and used it to scan the area behind the door. His face looked surprised for a moment, as some strange energy seemed to preventing a scan of the room. Shrugging it off as a chaos trick, he motioned his men forward. The Comte looked back at him as his men readied their grenades and weapons to storm the room.

With a nod from the Inquisitor, the door was flown open and grenades sailed through into the room's interior. While they were going off, the stormtroopers rushed in with hellguns blazing. They were met with total darkness as their fire stopped. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. They turned on their headlamps and even the Inquisitor looked stun before regaining his composure. All around them lay corpses. Some looked as though they had been cut, others had their flesh missing, leaving either skin or bone. In the middle of the circle of corpses lay the body of what could only be Trava'Kal, the stumps of his mecha-dendrites still attached, but his skull had nothing on or in it. And impaled through his chest and sticking out of the floor, was a staff of some sort. On both ends it had an axe like blade, but on the end stuck into the priest, there seemed to be a tube filled with green energy.

All heads turned as a crash was heard from where the had come in, and they found a large crate had fallen, blocking their way out. The Inquisitor was loosing his cool as he tried to return order to his men, but then he noticed something, the staff was no longer their. He quickly did a double take and confirmed it. At that moment, green hellfire poured from the darkness, engulfing first one, then another stormtrooper, and their shrieks were quickly silenced as even their bones were reduced to nothing. Las fire and bolts from the Inquisitors master bolt-pistol laced the darkness. They had formed a semi-circle with the Inquisitor behind them. All the sudden the inquisitor heard a thud right next to him and then he was thrown backwards, yelling in pain as his right forearm was taken of his chest armor cracked. The men close enough to the Inquisitor to hear his cry over the den of weapons fire turned and were cut down, their three collective head severed cleanly off their bodies. The others began to turn as well, but were cut down either by the staff, or consumed by the hellfire, as the staff whirred through the darkness.

The Inquisitor managed to regain his senses and pulled himself into a sitting position on the wall, watching as his men were taken down at ease, wondering what this new foe could be. Then the last trooper went down, severed from left shoulder to lower-right ribcage and with him died his headlamp. Then all was darkness once more. The only sound was that of the Inquisitor's ragged breathing as he strained to see his attacker. Then in front of him, he saw two orbs of hellfire looking down at him, and in them he saw the end of all life. Then there was the sound of something moving quickly through the air and the Inquisitor thought no more.

Incoming Transmission:
Origin: Cypra Cenari (Shadow Hunter, Phantom-class)
Originator: Pah il C'Tan
Re: Objective accomplished.

A/N: Comte: I believe this is a high rank in Kasrkin (Stormtrooper) forces.

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