#Author's Notes: This is a story that goes along with the Warhammer 40,000 universe. This piece was written 11 November 2006. Enjoy,
Hurt =][=
“Do you know why I even spared you?”
A man stood in the corner of a dimly lit room, with his hands shoved into his pockets. He had short grey and black hair with light grey eyes.
“It’s a question that I’ve pondered myself. It would’ve been easier to assign an assassin to kill you, but for some odd reason, I wanted meet you myself. Maybe it’s because you are so evil and twisted that I felt it was my duty to get you. Then again, I’ve always had a thing for chasing sadistic killers.”
The man cleared his throat before pulling out a laspistol. The weapon was small in the man’s massive hands. It was so small that it looked like a toy instead of an instrument of death.
“Things could change for you. I could let you go and call up one of my old friends inside the Officio Assassinorum and have them assign a Eversor Assassin on your sorry hide. Do you know who they are?”
The room was silent. The man laughed. The laugh was loud and obnoxious. He stopped a moment later.
“Well they are some of the nastiest people in this universe. Forget anything you’ve ever heard of a little torture or a gruesome murder and imagine a total bloodbath. I’ll release him once you get back to your loving wife and children. Just think of the blood splattered walls. The…. maimed corpses of your family. Not to mention you, laying in a pool of your own blood, missing limbs and appendages, watching that assassin kill your family. Would you like that?”
Again the room was silent. The man closed his eyes and took his hands out of his pockets. He opened his eyes a moment later before looking down at the laspistol.
“I could hurt you a thousand different ways, but I somewhat feel like I should be lenient to you and your crimes. General Hectus, you are a monster plain and simple. You enjoy killing innocent Imperial citizens. Let me rephrase that. You enjoy not killing but destroying lives. What was the final count? Fifty-four? How many did you kill out of that, fifty?”
“Try sixty-three. I’ve only killed fifty seven, ” replied General Hectus. He was a small and weak looking man, definitely not a man that was a leader of men. Hectus had short, neatly kept grey hair with narrow brown eyes. He wore a dark green dress uniform with badges and medals pinned to his chest.
“Fifty seven? My mistake. It doesn’t matter but why did you do it? A bad childhood, or a simple malfunction in your twisted brain? I am just curious because not many people enjoy raping and killing, but it does fit your fancy.”
“Power you simple minded fool,” Hectus spat angrily. “For the time that I spent with each of those women, I made them completely powerless. I owned them both in mind and soul. Do you know how that feels? I highly doubt that you do.”
The man laughed at Hectus.
“Power? General Hectus, I am a member of the Inquisition, I have more power than most. I can bomb a planet if I feel its necessary. I can destroy entire civilizations in a matter of moments if I so choose to but I don’t. I am not a sadistic killer like you.”
“Surely you have thought of it,” the General said quietly. “Since you have that much power, the notion of wiping out a planet must have crossed your mind.”
The Inquisitor was quiet for a moment. “Many wild and crazy ideas have crossed my mind but I don’t act on impulses, if I did that then I would be a senseless creature. People like yourself are born without consciences but people like me, I was born with one. I don’t kill on a whim or just for a bloodlust. If I did, then I would be no better than you.”
Hectus looked at the pistol in the Inquisitor’s hand.
“Do I threaten you?” he asked coldly.
The Inquisitor chuckled. “You? No. I’ve gone head to head with many things worse than an Imperial General.”
“Why are you holding that weapon so tightly then?” Hectus asked with a grin. He could feel the fear in the Inquisitor.
“It is funny,” the Inquisitor began, “that we are talking about consciences and I’m debating whether to end your sorry life right here.”
He was holding the laspistol now, contemplating on his next action. The Inquisitor slowly raised the gun, aiming it directly at the General’s face. His finger wrapped around the trigger.
“Do I threaten you?” the Inquisitor asked, mocking Hectus.
The General glared at him. “You cannot intimidate me!”
“Really? I find that hard to believe. Every human being can be intimidated, you just have to know how to do it.”
The Inquisitor looked at the General and where he was. Hectus was sitting at a table located in the middle of the room. The Inquisitor looked at the table. He lowered the laspistol slightly and pulled the trigger. The las-round pierced through the table, going wide of the General and hitting the floor. The shot made Hectus jump.
“I can’t intimidate you huh?”
The Inquisitor laughed, looking at the frightened look on the General’s face.
“Shut up!” Hectus shouted.
The Inquisitor still was laughing.
“I have to admit, having power over another person does have its benefits. I haven’t laughed this hard in many a year.”
The General’s face was turning bright red as he held his tongue.
“I should do this more often,” the Inquisitor muttered to himself as he walked towards the table.
He lowered the laspistol.
“General, you don’t like it when you’re the one with no power now do you?”
Hectus still said nothing, but his face was getting redder.
“Well I don’t think you like it. What happened? You were so lively before, now you are a quiet little fellow. Speak up.”
The Inquisitor walked right up to the table and holstered the laspistol.
“Come on, you can talk. Don’t be afraid,” he said with a grin. “I won’t hurt you.”
Hectus looked up at him.
“You know nothing about me or my tries at giving those women a rebirth.”
The Inquisitor dipped down and cocked his head so that he was hunched over, staring right into Hectus’s eyes.
“Rebirths? You took everything away from them. You made them feel isolated and alone. But that’s what makes you do what you do. You need their submissions, their…power in order to feel good about yourself don’t you? Let me tell you what I think of you. I think that you are an inadequate fellow both on the battlefield and with the opposite sex. You need power from others in order to have power yourself. It doesn’t matter if it is an innocent woman or in the midst of a battlefield but you need others to submit to your ‘immense’ power. In reality, other than being a measly old General, you are powerless. I hate to tell you like this but your wife….well she hasn’t been too faithful. I don’t even know if she remembers you or your ‘problems.’ But you might have a saving quality. Do you know what yours is? The same pattern. If it wasn’t for your sloppiness and pattern I don’t think you ever would have been caught.”
The Inquisitor went back into a standing position and let out a sigh.
“It also didn’t help that your own men made an anonymous report about heinous crimes. How does that feel? That your own men, your brethren reported you. Kind of makes you feel a bit powerless and disrespected. Thanks to them, I caught you.”
Hectus looked down at the floor.
“They wouldn’t do that to me,” he whispered.
“Oh they would and they did.” replied the Inquisitor with a chuckle.
“But…”
The Inquisitor looked at the table and sat down across from the General.
“I have to admit that I wasn’t aware that you were that clueless. I thought that you knew some of the basic details to your capture. Maybe I should enlighten you just to be polite. Two of your aides had a communiqué sent to my boss, Lord Inquisitor Kanov and boom, here I am.”
The General let out a sigh, knowing that he was trapped.
“I do find it interesting that you didn’t know about that. A man of your intellect and cunning should have picked up on the aides’ attitude changes. Maybe its just me, but even I could have noticed that.”
“They…would never hurt me,” Hectus said hurt.
“They did!” the Inquisitor shouted. “The people you trusted were the ones that ended your life! Your aides, you trusted them with both information and your own personal feelings, and what did they do? They betrayed you, made you powerless.”
The Inquisitor wasn’t laughing or kidding around anymore. He turned silent, just looking at the General for a moment.
“I still have power,” Hectus said under his breath. He couldn’t even address the Inquisitor, he had to look at the floor.
“Yes you do. You have the power of ending it right here or being put before a firing squad at dawn.”
The General looked at him. “I could end it right now?”
The Inquisitor nodded.
“How?” asked Hectus, slowly raising his head.
“By taking this laspistol and ending your sorry excuse of a life.”
The Inquisitor pulled the laspistol again and placed it on the metal table.
“You can end it right here. No one else has to know about your crimes,” he said to the General softly.
Hectus eyed the laspistol. He moved his hand carefully for the weapon, placing his palm on it.
“Go ahead,” encouraged the Inquisitor.
Hectus grabbed the pistol and brought it up so that the barrel was pressed against his forehead.
“At least have the power of ending it yourself,” the Inquisitor said before leaning back in the chair.
The General slowly pulled the trigger back but stopped before it went all the way back. He couldn’t do it. Hectus lowered the weapon.
“You are truly powerless,” the Inquisitor muttered.
The General looked down at the weapon.
“I also have the power to end your pitiful life,” Hectus said under his breath. The Inquisitor turned his attention on the weapon, making sure it didn’t come up and send a shot through his skull.
“You have that power?” the Inquisitor asked.
“Oh yes, I could kill you right here and get away with it.”
The General raised the laspistol and aimed it at the Inquisitor.
The Inquisitor nodded. Calmly, he leaned back in his chair, observing the General. “If you wanted to kill me, why procrastinate with small talk? Wouldn’t it be better if you just took the shot and got it over with. Because to me, it seems as if you’re too nervous or just don’t have the balls to kill an Inquisitor. Which one is it?” the Inquisitor asked harshly, belittling Hectus.
“Shut up! Can’t you see that I’m the one with the gun?! I could kill you like that,” the General said before snapping his free fingers. “I like to toy with my victims before I end their lives, you should know that.”
The Inquisitor was silent for a moment. “I should’ve, but I’m not perfect, I can’t pick up everything.”
Hectus looked at him, surprised by the Inquisitor’s response.
“I thought all you Inquisitors are the Emperor’s Finest,” he spat viciously.
The Inquisitor sat normally before clearing his throat.
“I’m human and not perfect. I had a childhood the same as yours, one with a harsh disciplinary basis along with no parents. When I was a child, I was expected to act as an adult. That isn’t right, is it?”
Hectus kept the pistol trained on the Inquisitor, making sure he wasn’t trying to pull anything.
“But I didn’t turn into a sadistic rapist and killer,” the Inquisitor began, “I turned into an agent of the Emperor and do his bidding. While you let your past be used as an excuse to kill and rape while I turned it into my work. It is where we’re different.”
Hectus was silent, absorbing the Inquisitor’s words.
“We aren’t very different are we?” he asked after a moment.
The Inquisitor shook his head.
“I didn’t let my environment become a weakness. But does it matter? I mean who knows, maybe it wasn’t the environment that you grew up in, maybe it’s just you. Maybe you’re prone to violence because of something in you, something genetic. That would mean that you’re just a sick freak that deserves to be killed.”
Finally the General reacted. He went to fire the laspistol but the Inquisitor, using the strength in his legs flipped the table. The metal slammed up against Hectus, forcing the laspistol to fly from his hands. The Inquisitor stood up and grabbed the pistol from the floor. Hectus pushed the table away and stood up, but knew that he had lost the pistol.
“Almost too simple,” the Inquisitor muttered. “For a man that has killed over fifty people, you sure do have enough compassion. I make up a simple sob story and buy time to outsmart you and guess what, you fell for it.”
The General glared at the Inquisitor. His face began turning red.
“Like I said before, you are powerless. Now I’m done with you,” the Inquisitor said harshly.
“Guards!”
A door in the one of corners opened and a pair of heavily armoured storm-troopers entered the room. They were dressed in black with respirators with carpace armour.
“Take General Hectus back to his holding cell. Set an execution time for dawn.”
“Sir yes sir,” one of the storm-troopers replied before walking over towards Hectus.
“Let’s go sir,” he said as he grabbed the General by the collar of his uniform.
The Inquisitor stood up and walked out of room and into a narrow hallway. A man dressed in a beige robe ran up towards him.
“Inquisitor MkManus congratulations on the confession,” the man said stopping behind the large form of the Inquisitor. “My name is Morhn, I’m a scribe stationed here. I was just wondering if I could talk to you for a moment?”
The Inquisitor was silent, looking at the man harshly.
“One question. Did his own men really turn against him?” the man asked quickly and nervously before pulling out a notepad and a pen.
MkManus let out a heavy sigh. The man was impatient, looking at the Inquisitor like an enthralled child.
“The report was from one of the General’s victims.”
The man wasn’t satisfied with the answer.
“And who was the victim?” he asked impatiently.
MkManus shoved his hands into his pockets.
“A nameless whore of an Imperial Governor. Smart girl I must admit.”
The man was surprised by the answer. He had expected that the answer would involve intrigue and deception, something that he could write about. MkManus noticed this and grinned.
“Make up a story,” he said. “It makes things interesting.”
The scribe looked at him confused.
“I beg your pardon sir?”
“I said make up a story, it makes things more interesting. Just imagine what would of happened if I didn’t tell a story back in that room.”
Morhn nodded.
MkManus turned and walked down the hall.
Subject: Hurt 
Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:18 am
