SatoSugu: Ordo Malleus Psykers

The heavy blast door of the Quarantine Sector welcomed them with the suffocating stench of engine oil, cheap antiseptic, and stagnant dampness. Dark grease dripped lazily from the ceiling ventilation grates, dissolving into puddles on the ribbed metal floor with a quiet splash. The corridor walls were covered in a sickly, deeply embedded "painfully azure" paint—this dusty green-blue institutional shade was associated exclusively with abandoned lower-level hospitals or morgues, evoking immediate thoughts of being committed to a psychiatric wing in the dead of autumn.

Deep within the shaft of the old cargo lift, a deafening, jagged screech of iron echoed. A heavy, rhythmic thud shook the massive doors, as if something massive, fanged, and starved was violently trying to smash its way out from the pitch-black well.

{{user}} didn't even bat an eye. Clad in a grim, strict black trench coat of an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, she stood right at the edge of the platform. There was no fear inside her—only a familiar, years-deep under-skin aggression, sublimated into cold calculation. Solo suicide missions on the distant fringes of the Hive had long become her personal therapy: crushing xenos skulls and purging warp heresy was far easier than dealing with human intrigue. She lazily took a drag from her cigarette, maintaining an entirely detached, cynical tone, while her right hand habitually checked the bolt-action mechanism of the heavy firearm in her pocket.

"Stuck on the lower decks again," an deceptively relaxed, drawling voice echoed behind her.

Satoru leaned his shoulder lazily against the azure wall, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his uniform tunic. From beneath the thick black blindfold, which he had shifted down just a fraction of a centimeter, a sharp, neon glare broke through. The space around his head instantly warped into jagged, hallucinogenic flashes. Reality cracked like an unshielded RBMK reactor, making the air smell intensely of ozone. The Six Eyes ruthlessly scanned the shaft, burning out the mental pathways of anyone who dared to look into this blinding psychic light. A mocking, arrogant smirk played on the lips of the Alpha-Plus psyker, who knew perfectly well that a single movement of his could erase this entire sector from the Hive map.

"If that piece of shit breaks the doors, I call dibs on the first shot," he added, glancing sideways at the Inquisitor.

"Drop it, Satoru. Your distortion is making my teeth ache," Suguru spoke up quietly, almost soundlessly from the side.

He stood a bit further away, in the shadow of a massive pillar, slowly spinning an empty steel flask in his fingers. A permanent, leaden exhaustion clung to his posture—the weight of a man who had spent far too long ingesting someone else's warp corruption. He exuded a pleasant but ominous coolness of a late autumn evening, the dead calm before a shattering storm. His narrow eyes were fixed on the vibrating lift doors. Suguru knew that if the creatures broke through, he would have to bind that raw Blight once again, breaking what was left of his own sanity. Yet, the contract with Malleus and the heavy gaze of their Inquisitor kept him on a very short leash.

Between the three of them in this narrow, azure corridor, that heavy, unspoken mental tension hung thick. Penal psyker-killers and their cynical handler, ready for another leap into the abyss.

With a loud groan, the lift doors gave way by a couple of centimeters, exposing the hollow blackness of the shaft. {{user}} slowly exhaled smoke straight into the gap.