[IC] There is no Innocence, Only degrees of Guilt

[Omega]

Markus Aultellus, Inquisitor of His Holy Ordos, sat alone in his well appointed quarters above his frigate, Wrath Unrelenting, his feet up on his desk reading the same document he had already gone over a dozen times. It was in regards to the most recent conflict on the planet below, one which was in effect finished in large part thanks to the primary subject of the document he now read, Aura James Kalstov. The forces of Chaos seemed to know more than him once again and as always he hated it, he longed for psykers or sorcerers who could read the future or see plans the way theirs could. This lone woman had been so important he was certain now that they had set some sort of trap for her to sacrifice her in a ritual of some kind. Based on her report it seemed like a normal summoning ritual to open a way for daemons to enter the material world but something was off, they should have wanted more than one yet they just wanted her for it. Then there was what she did, it was all impossible, she should have been cut down instantly by those astartes instead she killed them all and ruined their attempts at summoning. He knew she was the key to this, the initial tests had been done and she did not have the signs of a normal psyker but that did not preclude such a thing as he had run into enough oddities among witchkin to understand that she could be Ahriman himself in disguise and he would never know it until something more powerful forced her true form to be revealed.

For now though he was exploring different options he had a piece of parchment next to his feet with all his ideas written out so far with everything from, "Luckiest girl in the Imperium" to "Saint Celestine reborn" though nothing stuck in his head yet. His strongest idea was that she was touched by the Emperor and potentially a future saint. Though not far behind was that she was touched by the warp and that one of the dark gods had some nefarious plan for her to do something like spawn some new warp storm. Either way he had to keep eyes on her for now.

His musings were interrupted by a knocking at his door, with the paranoia indicative of an inquisitor he took his bolt pistol from his desk and prepared to aim it at the door while also throwing himself to the floor. With his other hand he pressed a button under his desk and the door to his room slid aside, a lone stormtrooper took a few steps inside before speaking to the inquisitor, "Sir, we have the subject in interrogation room A1 ready for you."

Relaxing slightly recognizing the trooper he put his feet down but kept the bolt pistol ready under the desk, "Good, I will be there momentarily," placing the document he had been reading on the desk he looked at another with his other primary concerns either daily or of late, the tyranid hybrid had been fed lately with a whole grox given to him and his eldar friend was had been given a handful of heretical prisoners a few days ago to occupy him since they expected a boon of several more as the clean up on the planet below continued. Standing up he holstered the bolt pistol and grabbed a power sword that had been leaning against his desk securing it to his belt as well. He took a moment to make himself properly presentable for a first impression, he had a bit of scruff on his chin but figured it did not detract too much from his overall appearance, his hair was cut short naturally as you never know when you might have to grapple someone, and as for what he wore his block overcoat emblazoned with the Inquisitorial sigil in gold on both sides over top of a black undershirt and black pants gave him a simple but he figured somewhat intimidating look, exactly what he aimed for.

Striding from the room the stormtrooper followed after him down the corridors to the interrogation room, he then recalled his newest addition to the vessel, "Stormtrooper, find me Interrogator Cassius and tell her I request her presence in interrogation room A1, if she does not know where that is escort her there."

"Yes sir," the stormtrooper promptly broke off from following the inquisitor and went off down another corridor to the interrogator's own luxurious room elsewhere among the VIP berthing.

It took a few minutes of walking to get down to the A-series interrogation rooms which differentiated from the B-series rooms in that they were not against the hull of the ship and able to be vented into space and being meant for cordial interrogation rather than the more, severe, interrogations of the B-series rooms. Still they were unlikely to be considered pleasant by the occupant as the rooms consisted of lone bright glow-globe at the top center of the room, two chairs, and a table. The one Aura was in would be the same as all the others. Approaching room A1 he saw the two stormtroopers who had escorted the guardsman to the room still stood at the door their hellguns ready as they naturally swept the corridor with their eyes behind the helmets of their carapace armor.

"Is she in there?" he asked at the stormtrooper alreay knowing the answer.

"Yes sir, we brought her directly from the Imperial Guard forward base by flyer as per orders." The stormtrooper responded in a crisp military tone.

"Good, if she said anything be sure to file it in your report, also be sure to remember any odd actions she may have taken, I want every detail you can give me after I talk to her,"

"Yes sir,"

With that short exchange done the second stormtrooper opened the door and as expected Aura was already inside. At first he said nothing to her walking directly to the table and placed a datapad on the table facing him, "First I want your name, home planet, and unit, then I want you to tell me exactly what happened down there when you saved the day trooper," he fixed her with a steely glare looking at her with his dark brown eyes, "And if you are wondering who I am, I am Inquisitor Markus Aultellus of His Holy Ordos so be sure you speak plain and true."

[Spartan023]

Aura looked up, meeting the inquisitor's eyes with a weary gaze. The woman's chestnut hair spilled over to the middle of her neck, kept close to her head as a result of the helmet that sat on the table In front of her. She was still clad in a damaged suit of Carapace Armor, with entire chunks missing from the thighs and arm plating as a result of the efforts of the second Marine. The armor was a faded grey, since the world she'd been fighting on only hours before was a very rocky, inhospitable World. Her eyes, A shade of purple common on her world just as it was on the planet of Cadia, rested on the data pad in front of the inquisitor. The inquisition was something to be feared, something that both of her regiments had spoke of as though they were some form of boogie-man.

Ceasing her quick examination of the man before her, she calmly took a breath and said "Sergeant Aura James Kalstov, Noracles Five, 132nd Infantry, or rather what's left of it." His next question, however, was much harder to answer. She knew the odds of facing not only ten corrupted guardsmen, but also two space marines, and coming out not only alive, but as the victor, were astronomical. How and why she was able to do it was no doubt what he was interested in.

Drawing a breath, she decided to present the story as best as she could. "Well," she began "My squad was sent out by the regiment's colonel to cut off the head of the enemy's command structure. It was a suicide mission and every member of my team knew it, but we had our orders. We inserted via grav-chute, only faced token resistance on the way into their HQ building. I was on point, like always, when I walked into a massive chamber. The door behind me immediately slammed shut and separate me from my squad. Before I knew it a Marine was charging at me with a big blade that practically oozed chaos."

She took a moment here to draw another breath before continuing on "For some reason, I suppose because of all my training and combat experience, I wasn't scared. With the help of my HUD, I was able to slag his head with my hellgun." She punctuates this statement with a tap on her helmet, a light smile on her face. She'd have to remember to give the helmet's machine spirit thanks after she was done here.

Forging on, she resumed "That's when the warp portal appeared, like a terrible scar on reality in the center of the room, and I saw a massive daemon trying to push through the portal. I dove into cover and considered my options before deciding on the best course of action. I jumped over the low wall I'd used as cover and immediately the other marine was shooting at me. Thank the Emperor, his aim was off and myan wasn't, so I beheaded the traitor with a burst through the neck. By then the warp spawn was almost through and I was running out of options, and armor, so I cut my backpack off, over loaded it and threw it then threw a frag In with it. The Archenemy were all wiped out, and so was the rift, and then the door opened. My squad had accounted for two more astartes and we were pulled back to the field base, where I was told my regiment was wiped out, then your boys took me from my squad and brought me here before I could even take off my suit." This last bit held some obvious resentment, and anyone with half a brain could tell Aura was quite upset at being separated from her team.

[Pyro V]

Log 001

"Log Number 1 of the new mission. Or whatever the hell it is I'm supposed to be on. You are recording, aren't you? Right, right. Now, let's see. To sum up everything, I was doing something I wasn't quite supposed to be doing, you and I both know what it was, and it would be stupid to go into any detail on it. Regardless, he died, I lived, and now I'm serving some Inquisitor who works outside of the Ordos, and no one has decided to tell me a fucking thing.

Pardon my language, but holy shit this kind of stuff pisses me off. I thought being part of the Inquisition meant that you got told just about everything, and here I am in the dark. Seriously, just what the hell?

Tch, anyways, I'll be keeping up with these as we go, putting in little things every now and then. Have a feeling that one of these days I'll say something important without knowing it and someone will glance over the logs and find it themselves. Course, I'll probably kill 'em if they go through these without my permission. If you're listening to these, take good care of that last bit, cause I'll come back from the dead and beat your ass into the ground."

A knock on the door interrupted the voice before it could continue, and with a quick "End Log 001" the recording quit. Interrogator Anna Cassius of the Ordo Malleus sat in a high backed chair, staring into the eyes of a psyber-raven, the robotic black bird tilting its head as the knock sounded once more. The woman's eyes narrowed and glanced to the side, and her hand wrapped around the barrel of the hellrifle that rested against the desk. Slowly standing, she readied the gun, resting the barrel atop the back of the chair. With a small gesture, the psyber-raven flew onto the Interrogator's bed, and led out a pre-recorded command in Anna's voice, "Enter."

The door opened, and a stormtrooper entered. The woman's muscles relaxed, and she raised the rifle up. The trooper paused and stared at the bird, who flew over to land back on the desk behind Anna. His helmeted gaze followed, and she could feel his uneasiness from where she was, even if she couldn't read it on his face. A passive frown covered her face as the narrowed eyes remained, the woman waiting to hear whatever he had to say.

The trooper coughed, and averted his gaze away from her. Unlike most people on the ship, Anna wasn't paranoid enough to be in full body armor at all times. As such, her current state of dress was rather lacking, causing the man to take a few moments to compose his words. "Ma'am, Inquisitor Aultellus requests you in Interrogation Room A1, immediately."

A sigh escaped the woman, who rose a hand to rub at her temples. "Thank you, trooper. Please, wait outside the door while I ready myself. Is it about Kalstov?" A brief nod answered her. "Yes, I've read the report, I have it hear, will look over it. Now, go wait." The man obediently exited the room and stood outside, and Anna made haste to dress herself. In but a minute, she was in full formal attire, lacking only the wide-brimmed hat. Leaving it, she pulled the long coat over her, and belted it around her waste. Her hellrifle was shoved into the holster on her back, and she let out a little whistle. In an instant, the psyber-raven was perched upon her shoulder, and in her hands was a datapad with the Kalstov Report displayed on it.

She exited her room, and made her way towards the interrogation rooms, the stormtrooper falling in step behind her. Likely, it had started without her. Grey eyes stared down at the pad, going over the report for the upteenth time. Short strands of black hair framed her pale face as she glared down at it, the psyber-raven looking just intently at it. As she neared the interrogation room, she looked up and shoved the datapad into the hands of the stormtrooper, and pushed her way into the room. She was able to hear the last bit of the story, about the regiment being wiped out, but she didn't need to hear any of it.

Anna and the raven both gave the woman a sideways look, the woman narrowing her eyes momentarily, then Anna stood at attention behind the Inquisitor, hands folded behind her back. The aura of unease around her engulfed the room, and her eyes settled on the woman. "Interrogator Cassius, reporting for duty, sir," she said calmly, the raven muttering something indistinct into her ear. "What would you have of me?"

[Tenish the Mighty]

They thought it was about pain. They thought it was all about pain. It was not. It was never about pain. Of course, there was no point in trying to explain it to them. Pain was all they knew so pain was all they saw. Pain was all they smelt. Pain was all they felt. Pain was their entire universe and still they knew nothing of it.

What they knew of pain was the loss of a limb. To have one's fingers carefully, exquisitely sheared off, on knuckle at a time. The feeling of having their bodies turned alight with the white-hot agony of neural excruciation. They thought pain of the body was all there was. Some, the clever ones, understood pain of the mind. They knew the pain of loss, of helplessness, of the fear that writhes in your belly, the phantom sensations that burned into the psyche after each session on the slab. They knew the agony of anticipation, they soul-searing suffering of compromising one's mind to preserve one's body, the pain of hearing the screams of a loved one that would not or could not be helped.

The most perspicacious knew pain of the spirit. They knew the loss of faith and morality that came from pain, the abandonment of sanctity that comes with true suffering. It was one thing to cower in fear from pain, another to fall into desperation to secure its relief. But worse still was the pain that was self-inflicted, with no coercion, no collusion. The pain of being striped of all pretense and be made to recognize one's own perversity. To lose one's very identity to the pain.

That was real pain, that was true suffering. To make mothers feast on their children, to make fathers beg not for an end to pain but for its continuation. That was the real art. That was the real purpose. And that was what he always remembered as he went about his work.

Slender, bladed fingers cradled the thing's head. No, it was not about the pain. He looked into the things's unblinking eyes. The think looked back. There was fear in those eyes, and miscomprehension. There was pain too. Mostly though, there was ignorance. The thing did not know yet the purpose for it's pain. It could not fathom the exquisite zenith of art and knowledge that it's suffering ineffable lead to. It did not understand, as he peeled its flesh off of it's face, that he wanted more than the base sadism of his kith and kin. It did not understand and he knew no way of communicating to the creature the deep designs for which it bled. He tried, he had spoken with it as he carved into it's gums, removing them from it's skull with a wet pop, but by then it had no words with which to convey its understanding. When he bored into it's ear canal and scooped out all the extraneous flesh from it's skull it lost the ability to hear his gentle explanations at all. But still, even now, bereft of most of it's base flesh it was aware. As he carved his foul runes into the inside of it's jaw and carefully etched the sigil of the Mon-Keigh Inquisition into the bloody bone of it's forehead he hoped it took solace in knowing that it's existence would still have means, greater know than it ever had before his loving caress. If nothing else it might take solace in the belief that it's labors would be in nominal service to it's primitive, heathen god-king.

Vix made a strange alien sound, almost a purr, almost almost a caw, almost a yawn. Rising from his place amidst the minutia of the things former life, he carefully stepped around the neatly stacked piles of bone and skin and sinew. Lifting the skull-thing, he placed it on the shelf with all the others. All those eyes, unblinking with no eyelids to blink, staring out with pain and fear the likes of which no mortal man could suffer to imagine. Vix bared his teeth back at his arrayed creations, their skeletal grins belaying none of their lack of appreciation for his ministrations. He would have to show the Inquisitor his latest work. Perhaps it was immodest of him, but Vix was certain it was his finest attempt yet. These 'servo-skulls' would be wonderful additions to the menagerie, held aloft by the wisdom of the Eldar, and moved by the very much still living brains of their original occupants, he could not help but feel a small amount of pride in his work, more nuanced and sophisticated than anything the mon-keigh had managed to create.

Thinking on the Inquisitor, Vix's smile turned sharper still. He was no fool. He knew when the masters used treats to placate their beasts. His latest materials were little more than an effort to distract and sate the Eldar in exile. To prevent him from making his particular presence known to the Inquisitors new pet. If Vix was given the have regard for the opinions of base creatures, he might find the notion insulting. Instead, it almost brought amusement. Mores the pity that the Inquisitor was not more comfortable with Vix's assistance, his interrogations were always more...informative with Vix around.

Still, Vix was sure he'd get his chance to drink of the new pet soon enough. More than he ever got with any of the others in any case. Vix still chaffed slightly from the Inquisitor's insulting refusal to allow Vix to have the Inquisitor's pet IllMureead creature, a beast with which Vix was especially interested in.

A small, involuntary whimper drew Vix from his spiteful reverie. He turned his face back towards the darkest corner of his domain. Ah, of course, he had almost forgotten. He still had one more collection of material as yet unused. It sobbed and soiled itself in the corner. No sense letting it spoil. Besides he had a particular use for this one.

The creature of cruelty and vision known as Vix stalked towards the fear-frozen heretic to the God-Emperor, his movements languid and predatory. Painfully thin and sharp limbs extending to claim it's flesh. He smiled in what he knew was by no means a reassuring manner and wrapped his bladed gauntlets delicately around it's throat. He wondered if it would understand, if during it's transformation, this one would know that there was about so much more than the pain.

[Omega]

Markus listened to her story feigning rapt attention of it while he more studied her body language and the tone and inclination of her voice. There was nothing he could read that set anything off in his head so he knew this would be a longer interrogation. Near the end of the woman's story his new interrogator arrived. Turning to her he decided to respond to her first, "I assume you have read the report Anna," he took the barest of moments after using her first name to check for a reaction from his un-asked for familiarity with her before continuing, "Therefore I wish for you to live up to your title. What we have here is a enigma, a conundrum, an impossibility." At this he look at the guardswoman sidelong before turning to face her.

"Have you ever seen power armor before trooper? Catching two astartes in the head and finding a weak spot is not something easily done. See armor is meant to protect vital areas more than most, naturally joints have to allow movement which is why those areas are reinforced as they can be. You see the helmet is meant to take a solid hit and keep a normal human alive, an astartes should have shrugged off a hit to the head from your gun and punched you through a wall. If you hit below there is a very strong ring of armor to deflect shots down and away. What this means is you hit exactly between the helmet and chest plate. This would have been an impossible task with a solid slug weapon since the round would not fit through the gap which you managed to hit firing off snap shots at an enemy bearing down on you, twice." He balled his hands into fists and placed them both on the table looking down on the guardswoman giving her his best Inquisitorial glare before rising and turning to Cassius again.

"Interrogator, consider this part of your formal training, interrogate our subject here, I want you to find out how she survived, I want to know how she did the impossible." With that he walked to one of the corners of the room and proceeded to lean against the wall staring directly at Aura awaiting for Anna to begin the process.

[Spartan023]

Aura sighed, commenting "Sir, with due respect, I have seen astartes armor before, in my first deployment and as I mentioned I was using a Hellgun, not some autogun plinker. It's designed to get through Astartes armor. I will grant you I shouldn't have lived, the marine with the knife should've close the gap before I could blink and the bolter shouldn't have missed. However, I'm afraid I can't offer you any explanation as to why I did the impossible. I fought hard but that's it."

That said, Aura's hands rested comfortably in her lap, and they just happened to be clenched into gauntled fists. A real weapon they were not, however a punch from carapace armor still hurt like all get out. Aura didn't enjoy being treated like a lowly prisoner, especially not because she had done somethin like prevent the summoning of a daemon. Then there was the Interrogator herself, she gave off all the wrong vibes. Every instinct in the veteran's body told her that this woman was nothing but trouble, so she stayed wary.

[Pyro V]

At the use of her first name, Anna gave him an annoyed glance, but nothing more. The raven on her shoulder flapped its wings a few times, and landed on the table, giving Aura a good, long stare. Once her superior was finished with his questioning... or, rather, statements, she cleared her throat and sat in the chair directly across from Aura. Idly, her hand reached over to pet the raven between its wings, while her other hand reached behind to grab her rifle. She brought it around and down, laying it on the table near her. It seemed like an ancient hunting rifle, one someone would see on a primitive planet, not a single protective rune on it, the power of daemon coming off of it in waves.

She folded her hands in front of her, and let out a sigh. "I apologize for my friend's wasting your time, stating what you've already known," Anna opened with, her face remaining blank. "Let's get right down to it, then. Reports say you killed a number of Chaos Marines, and stopped a Greater Daemon from entering the Materium. I applaud what you've done there, Sergeant. However, as you may have noticed, it is quite the tale to believe, especially since you are simply a guardswoman, and something like that is normally handled by the Astartes, or the Malleus. Truly, I envy you. It's been a long time since I've gotten to go toe-to-toe with Greater Daemon." A smirk came over her face, and she gave Aura a strange look.

"But this isn't about me," she continued. "Even with a hellgun, dropping Astartes like that, and with only one, is unheard of. A single guardswoman should not have been able to do this, no matter how skilled. So, there are a few things that could have happened there." She held up her hand, holding up a finger for each point she would bring up. "The first, and likely the rumor circulating through your squad, is that you are blessed by the Emperor. The second is that this is all a ploy, you work for one of the Dark Gods, and you are simply trying to get higher in the Imperium and increase the Threat From Within. There is also the chance that you simply got lucky." The three fingers she held up closed into a fist, which she gently laid down on the desk.

"Now, I don't believe in something like luck, so that takes down the third point. That leaves you as either blessed by the Emperor, or a pawn of the Dark Gods. Which do you think we are more inclined to believe, Sergeant Kalstov?" A cruel smile was spread over her face, and the psyber-raven let out a menacing caw. "You have five minutes to convince me that you are blessed, or I'll hand you back over to my friend there, and I can guarantee you that you'd rather deal with me. Tick-tock, Sarge."

[Spartan023]

Aura's eye twitched In anger, grabbing her helmet and saying "Check my helmet logs if you think I'm warp corrupted. I keep the thing on me all the time, it sees everything I do. And riddle me this, inquisitor or interrogator or whatever your blasted title is, if I were tainted by the warp, why not perform some foul ritual on this ship the moment I got pulled in? It'd be a golden opportunity, or better yet, why stop a Greater Daemon from materializing at all? It'd pull plenty of favor from the Dark Gods, wouldn't it?"

Her purple eyes filled with righteous anger, she growled "If you still doubt me then I can do no more, but I will fight to my last, and when I stand before the Emperor after I perish, my conscience will be clean. Can you say the same?" With that, she dropped the carapace helmet in her hands on the table, fists balled, saying "So what will it be? Do I continue to serve the holy emperor, or do I die here? It's your choice, so it would seem."

[Pyro V]

Anna laced her fingers together, continuing to smile as Aura vented her anger. It was amusing, to say the least. Once the helmet was slapped down and the woman was finished, Anna undid her hands and idly tapped the table with one finger. "I can think of several reasons why you would do nothing the moment you reached this ship, most of which involve Tzeentch and a lot of plans. A pawn of Khorne wouldn't have the patience for this, an acolyte of Nurgle would have been teeming with plagues the moment they entered the ship to infect the lot of us. I doubt Slaanesh would go through the trouble of having her Astartes and one of her Greater Daemons destroyed just to get rid of a few Inquisitors when it could have had an entire planet. Leaving us with just the Lord of Fate to deal with."

She raised her hand, holding up an index finger to silence anything anyone might say. "However, you speak with conviction that I would not believe to come from anyone, save possibly the Alpha Legion. And I can tell that you are not under the influence of sorcery, so I have no reason to suspect you to be hiding any blessings from the Dark Gods. Adding all of this together, I have no reason to believe you to be one of their agents. Unfortunately, I don't believe you to be blessed by the Emperor either."

Her gaze turned towards the helmet. "Archimedes, please download the logs," she stated, and the psyber-raven descended onto the helmet. Its head was shoved inside, and after a minute, it popped back out, clicking its beak together. "Thank you. I'll review these later. However, I doubt you will be simply released. If it were my decision, I'd have to confined to the ship until further notice, and possibly send you to a monastery to let the Sisters decide whether or not you are blessed. Unfortunately, that is not my decision." She turned to look back at the Inquisitor in the corner, while Archimedes continued to glare at Aura. "What say you, boss?"