Luis heard about the rift through the grapevine before most others did. He was thankful for the short commute to what could be the game changing event of his life and got himself ready to go with a patience reserved for men so sure that the universe would bend to their will that they didn't fear time. Something as sweet and important as this shouldn't be rushed, he wanted to let it come to him.
When he arrived on the scene he wasn't alone, there were people there taking stock of the portal and doing their preliminary assessments but he had aces up his sleeve.
"Excuse me everyone, I have some chemicals here I'd like to test if you could all make a wide berth around the portal, I'll only be a minute." it wasn't false, he had a case full of chemicals he could use to test the reactivity of the compounds that made up this magical rift.... but mostly he wanted the few people who were there to leave him to his own interpretations. They were soiling his discovery.
Most of the few enchanters in the area looked a little confused but they acquiesced, some of them probably recognized him from the school and the Consortium... some of them were probably Alliance and didn't want to be held accountable (or interested) in whatever he was about to do to this rift. There was one however who didn't get the message, he walked up in a huff and crossed his arms "I'm not goin' anywhere except THROUGH that thing!"
A wanna-be pioneer, there would inevitably be more of them. Luis knew the history of the rifts himself but he was always curious to see with his own eyes. He stared steadily at the man, blinking slowly, and waited for him to finish before saying. "That is fine. If you have to stay, you have to stay, maybe you can lend me a hand." his tone gave nothing about his emotions away but the man seemed to deflate after being acquiesced to. He was obviously expecting a fight that didn't come.
By now the others had stopped their rubbernecking and fled the area and it was just Luis and his little guinea pig, soaking in the glory. He knelt down and opened his case, pulling out a few vials and stepping near the rift. He opened them, letting them air out towards the magical entity and observed as nothing really happened at all. By the third vial he was getting a better idea of what he was dealing with but his little pioneer was getting absolutely fed up and wasn't afraid to say so. He stepped up and grabbed Luis by the arm, causing him to spill some of the vial in that hand (luckily not on himself) and the liquid hit the ground without so much as a sizzle. "Quit it! I'm gonna go in there, just move out of the way!"
He was obviously fueled by his fears and afraid any moment now they'd lose the steam needed to propel him through. Well, Luis didn't want that either, so with a glare he took a step back and gestured "By all means." towards the rift....
What happened next was exactly what he'd expected but not what he wanted to see. The pioneer passed through, then let out a sound that could only be described as blood curdling to the common folk, and tried to turn back but it was too late. He was a burning boiling mess of a human being as magic burned up inside of him and his form disappeared only to be thrown (it must have been thrown by something) back through and landed at his feet.
Luis sucked in a breath, ignoring the smell as it wasn't uncommon to him, and nudged the body with the toe of his boot. The rubber of his boot began to melt away and he pulled it back before the heat could affect the steel plate in it, but he could see the steel of his own boot now, to his frustration. He liked this pair, he should have been more intelligent about it. Instead he knelt again, leaned over and grabbed a meat thermometer and unceremoniously stabbed it into a soft gooey part of the man's remains. He recorded the number and then tested a few more places before packing it up in a sanitary bag and wrapping up the rest of his belongings. Time to go back home, he'd write up some kind of report to assuage his superiors, full of bereavement for a lost pioneer.
Maybe he could find those emotions by thinking about his lost boot.