Update: Sorry about the low upload schedule, I got a bunch of stuff coming up that's dragging me down, mainly stuff that I have to study for.

Chapter 3

12 years later

The light sound of a child running was audible on the rooftops in the palace, a dark silhouette visible from the streets if someone cared enough to look up, they never did, too busy looking sad about something she didn't understand, never doing anything but look down as they walked to wherever they called home, going back to whatever families they had.

The brick tiles beneath her clinked as she stepped on them, clearly needing replacing after millennia worth of service. The arches overseeing the walkways beneath made it easy to traverse the rooftops of the residential district, allowing her to cross between the roofs with ease. Beneath her she the bustle of the masses bellowed throughout the palace, even at night, the imperial palace never was silent, the best people could hope for was a slight decline in noise. She stared down at the crowds, looking at them going about their routine, they marched onwards, without exchanging a glance to the other people in the same situation.

She had a routine as well, never mind how different it was from those people down there, she was always confined indoors in the day, having to cope with boring lessons and stuffy teachers, learning about the salamanders or the raven guard or whatever chapter they thought was convenient to learn about for the day, they were all the same to her though, the same people underneath all that armor just with nice colorful color schemes to separate themselves from each other.

She never paid much attention to the lessons about them, it was all about how 'great' they were and how much 'glory' they had gotten over the years. It all blended together after the first few 'decisive victories' and 'triumph for the emperor', compared to those lessons, even MATH was a great reprieve, at least there was something new every lesson.

But it wasn't as if she only heard about them in lessons however, on her escapades into the night she'd seen some of them around the palace, they didn't seem special, they were just space marines, there were a thousand others like them. The only original thing that distinguished them was their yellow livery and a fist emblazoned on their shoulder pauldrons. But other than that they were just yellow space marines.

Fortunately, they were other subjects focusing on things other than space marines, music, language, engineering, military tactics, and science. Her favorite subject, however, was art, after all, it was all around her, she lived in a palace full of it, daddy must have really liked it. She must have inherited that from him because ever since she was born she had an interest in it, from the first time she made a crayon drawing of uncle Trajann to taking a rare pict capture of a Custodes laughing to put it to the canvas. Which she was then forced to submit to the Custodes after she was found out, unbeknownst to them she already made a copy which was why a month later she presented the canvas to daddy, she could have sworn she felt genuine laughter from him, in contrast to the beet red Custodes behind her.

But the greatest and most exciting part of the day was after her bedtime, when she ran from the palace, intent on exploring as much as the palace as possible, this was the farthest she'd ever gotten away from home before she'd have to head back. She sat down on the cold brick tiles beneath her and stared into the night sky, she had heard from some of the people working at the palace that this was the only place in Terra where you would be able to see the night sky as it was.

But all she saw was darkness, the light pollution coming from the Terran cities drowned out the starlight from distant stars, the only thing in the night sky was the moon, from here she could see its ring along with its countless manafactorums, she could even see battlefleet solar docked to it, thousands of ships invisible to the naked eye, but when together blotted out parts of the lunar surface. She must have been looking at the sight for a half-hour before she heard a voice, distinguishable from the noise in the crowd below her coming from behind her.

"Why are you on my roof?", someone said behind her curiously

She glanced behind her, startled by the sudden noise, illuminated by the moonlight a head poked out from behind the edge of the roof looking at her. She recoiled, her underdeveloped superhuman senses caught completely unaware by the person. She scrambled to the edge of the roof, her instincts taking control of the situation.

"Whoa, easy there, I'm just wondering why you're on my roof, thats all", the boy said, surprised by her sudden movements.

The person started climbing up on the roof, an undersized hand clutching on the worn roof tiles, as the person lifted himself up she could see its true nature. It was a boy, around her age, his silhouette illuminated by the moonlight as he tried to wiggle his way up on the roof. The boy's dark hair waved in the wind as he tried to get on the roof, clearly struggling to lift himself up onto the roof. She breathed a sigh of relief, her superhuman instincts 'powering down' or so to speak when she saw him. However a new type of fear overcame her, she had never talked to a child her age before, in the palace everyone was either an adult or an aspirant, usually between the ages of 1-2 years old, the latter weren't much fun to talk to.

"The view is better up here", she said nervously to the boy, bringing herself to continue the conversation. The boy finally was able to shimmy himself up on to the roof, sitting on the edge triumphantly like he had accomplished something.

"But why at 12 o'clock at night?", the boy said with a look of confusion on his face.

"I couldn't sleep, not with all this noise going on", She gestured to the endless noise coming from the crowds below, the river of people echoing a constant cacophony of noise. It was a half-truth, she'd never be able to sleep with this much noise but in the palace it was nowhere to be found.

"How do you sleep at all?", his accusing stare saw through her ruse, "It's never been quieter than this around here"

"I used to live in another district, it was quieter there", her lie was immaculate, it wasn't good enough to fool Custodes, far from that, but it was enough to convince the normal people in the palace.

"I'd like to see where you lived", the boy said incredulously, amazed at the fact that there was a district that was even remotely close to what amounted to as quiet in the palace, "or just hear it"

"We left because my parents couldn't find a job", her voice filled with manafactured sorrow, "so we moved here, where there were some", it did the trick, she could see the slight change in his eyes, in those eyes she saw him giving her undeserved sympathy.

"I get it, moving districts is hard, friends are hard to come by in the palace and leaving them behind is even harder", the words of advice were taken well by her facade, she smiled at him, internally chuckling at how good her lies were, "By the way whats your name?", he said, carrying on from his advice like nothing happened.

She was taken aback by it, she didn't expect him skip forward like that, and desperately tried to figure out a name for herself. The name had to fit the facade, to keep it up it had to be simple, common in the masses but unique enough that it would suit her story from being from another district.

"My name's Anna, and yours?", the name was simple, unique enough to stand out but common enough to not invoke suspicion, she had felt a shine for it and it was perfect for her facade.

"My name's Noah, I live right below us, nice meeting you, it's always fun to make new friends", he said with genuine excitement. A friend, she wondered what that was, the closest thing she could compare it to was the brotherhood between Cutodes, but she felt like it wasn't the same, especially they didn't act like it most of the time. Almost all of their time they stood in their golden armour never sharing a word or moving an inch on their watch. Nevertheless, it excited her, having a friend might be fun, maybe even fun enough to make up for the horrible history lessons which made up most of her day.

"Noah, I'll remember the name", she said, thinking of all the things she could do with a friend.

"You better, it's only 4 letters", Noah chuckled jokingly, this elicited a laugh from 'anna', having friends was already paying off. Still laughing, she looked up at the moon, it was off centre, only then did it hit her, the Custodes would almost certainly know she was gone by now, she would have to rush back before the razed the districts in search for her.

"I have to go", She said to noah while she scrambled back to her feet, Noah looked confused.

"What for?", he said with a face of confusion on his visage.

"My parents will know I'm gone, it's late", it was also a half-truth, the Custodes were the closest things to parents she had except the person on the throne, which she barely even got to talk to, but she didn't feel like distinguishing the roles 'Guardian' and 'Parent' right now. Noah looked up, and looked back to her with a look of surprise on his face.

"Understandable", she interpreted that as him acknowledging the situation and was about to begin running when, "but before you go, when will I see you again?"

"Soon, I'll come to you", she said, whipping her face to meet his eyes, then turned back and started running, leaving her newly found friend alone in the endless bustle of district.

The patrols were harder to infiltrate, they were made stronger since her disappearance, the palace was quiet, save for the marching boots of power armor and the whirring servos of their joints. Sneaking in to the palace was easy by now, for her anyways, she new the patrol routes, the field of view of the security pict-captures and where all the traps were. Her stealth skills were perfect, well as perfect as it could be at her age. Waiting until the Custodes pasts she lunged over the boxes, perfectly timing it so that she wouldn't be seen by the patrol coming behind her. She listened, the thumping of the boots drew closer and closer, and then fading away, just like every night. Making her way to her room was more difficult, patrols were more numerous and never seemed to follow a distinct schedule. Gliding across to the doors in her room, she took refuge in the shadows cast by the works of art, only emerging when the threat went away. Finally she arrived at her door, it was grand, artistic but most importantly, quiet enough that the Custodes superhuman hearing wouldn't pick it up. Pushing them open, she breathed a sigh of relief, the room was dark, unilluminated by the various unpowered lights in the room. Darkness blanketed the room, just the way she liked it, she could never understand people who required a light to sleep, what was there to be afraid of in the absence of light?. Suddenly blinding light illuminated the room, blinding her for a moment, bringing her hands up to her eyes to shield herself by the sudden shift of light.

"Olivia, where have you been?", the baritone voice came from the corner of the room previously sheathed in darkness, there in all his reflective glory, sat the Captain-General of the Custodes.

Her superhuman sensory organs recovered quickly, even if they were only in their first stage of development, she scoured her brain for a possible response. The next words would decide how many Custodes would be standing guard outside her room, the next night, or next year.

"Getting a snack?", she murmured out, she knew he wasn't dumb enough to actually believe it, but it was thne only thing she could think of at the time.

"Don't lie to me, getting a snack does not take 3 hours nor does it require you to leave the imperial palace", He said angrily, Uncle Trajann was like that, he was so worrisome, "We scoured 3 hab blocks and we still couldn't find you"

"It was a particularly elusive snack", she said, her mind devoid of any new ideas to save her skin. Uncle Trajann stood up, his superhuman body was perfectly capable of doing it himself yet the servo motors whirred anyway.

"You can't keep doing this, do you understand how dangerous the terran hive is, I personally destroyed 2 Cults this year alone!"His voice was incredibly angry, how could he not, a 12 year old child was able to slip through the Inner palace perimeter, it shamed him to no end, if she wasn't the emperor's daughter he would have been executed for his incompetence.

"I stuck to the roofs!, it's not my fault the palace is so boring", she said fed up with his overprotectiveness, didn't her siblings have adventure when they were young, she didn't understand why they could topple planetary governments but she couldn't travel the terran hive, "plus why can't my 'brothers' have fun and I can't"

"Because you're not a 500 pound hunk of muscle and steel", Trajann said bluntly, she thought she could have heard a hint of chuckling in his voice of his, but it was hard to tell through his built-in vox-caster.

"Bit prejudiced against women, don't you think!", she said confidently, hoping to go on the offensive in the argument.

"Are you making this a sexism thing?"Trajann said, astonished that the emperor's daughter would use such underhanded tactics to gain the upper-hand in the conversation, she liked using those tactics,requiring more intelligence than just 'smash, smash, rawr, for the emperor'. She could understand why the twins operated their whole legion of it, but the main reason was that there weren't any other options for a 12 year old girl right out of Terra. "Well I'm incredibly disappointed that you could only think of that to save your skin but unfortunately for you, they don't work on Custodes, I am posting guards outside your doors until you're ready to handle a bolter"

Her anger flared up inside, she was the emperor's daughter, how could they treat her like this, her father controlled an empire the size of the galaxy, commanded millions of space marines along with billions of guardsmen who were all willing to die for him. He led fleets the size of small moons against the enemies of man, but she couldn't even step outside the palace? Until she was able to handle a bolter?! It could be years before her physique was able to resist the kick of a normal sized bolter. What about her new-found friend in the outer sanctum!, he was one of a kind, when else would she have a chance to have a friend her age?, replacing him would take too much time.

"Thats just not fair!", she saw red.

She didn't remember what happened next, all she remembered next was that Trajann was one the ground, unconscious while destruction lay around her, her room was gone, splinters and dust song the wreckage, along with half of the floor and the ones below as well.

Trajann POV 15 minutes before

He'd never thought he`d see the day where a primarch would be throwing a petty tantrum like a child, especially over some visitation rights to the terran hive. Her anger was evident, however it would be fruitless to argue against a Custodes. However something was wrong, his instincts activated, he could sense something in the air amongst the child's anger, he immediately began scanning the room for potential threats, ignoring the child's tantrum. There was nothing there, impossible, nothing could hide from the emperor's guard, she looked back to olivia's tantrum, ready to escort her outside the room. He stopped and took in the scene before him, purple lightning bounced around the room, pulses of raw warp energy so powerful he had to brace for him were emitted, all originating from Olicia. His search efforts were unnecessary, what he was searching for was right in front of him, she was the potential threat. Well not so potential anymore, the girl clearly posed a threat to the infrastructure of the surrounding area, it wasn't hard to see that from a girl with psychic lightning shooting out of her head.

He knew this day would come, he knew the day he entered that damp, decrepit little room where she was being held, he should have known it would happen soon, most psykers awaken at her age, but he'd been stupid enough to not prepare for it in advance. A mistake he would likely regret in the next few minutes, the light bulbs shattered from the power she was throwing around, air gathered around her, not unlike a tornado. Then came the first attack, she outsretched her arm, he could see the immaterial energies coalesce into a point in her hand, and from that point psychic lightning lashed out against him, he tried to dodge however his movements were not faster than light, and he caught the blast of lightning in his breastplate.

While he did just catch a blast of lightning from a probable Alpha psyker, Custodian armor was not a fragile thing, especially the one given to the Captain-General of the Custodes. It also kind of helped that she didn't know how to properly use her powers yet, an attack of that magnitude coming from a trained psyker would have cleaved Rhino in half. However, coming from her, it was diluted and watered-down.

But while his armor was fine, the room around it was not, the lightning deflected from his breastplate wreaked its havoc on the walls, burning away the paint and destroying the wall beneath it as well. It would take more than a few thrones to fix that, forgetting to pay attention to the alpha rogue psyker 2 metres away from him. Looking back it seemed as though Olivia was charging up, her veins glowed with immaterial power, building up with the presumable intent that he be the victim of such a malicious attack. He braced too late, he was flung across the room, bursting through the thin walls in a demonstration of Newton's third law, he looked back at Olivia and her rampage. The room was ravaged, beyond all hopes of being repairable, the walls were practically gone, the roof had holes in it from the blast and the psyker in the middle of it was about to do the same to the floors above and below. She raised her arm again, and he felt something close around him, she flung her arm up and down, and he did the same, slamming into the roof and floor, incredulous at how much more powerful her attacks were getting, she was a quick learner, that was for sure. Which he would have praised her for, if she wasn't pummeling him into the floor, finally she stopped, flinging him like a doll across the room into a wall again.

Recovering from the probable concussion that being pummeled into the floor would give him, he finally go it, he remembered Borsa's words from years before, when they first started making this room.

"I've got a few Psyk-out grenades here, I'll put em in here," he said putting them in a hidden drawer embedded into the wall.

"Why?", he asked confusingly.

"Because someday she'll awaken, and believe me, you're going to want this gear when dealing with that"

He thanked Borsa for his blessed foresight and fumbled around on the floor, unfortunately the wall had been destroyed in the blast, meaning he would have to scrounge into it to find those grenades. He stood up and ran over to the rubble, trying to fish out the metal container before Olivia could bring up the energy to pummel him again. Speaking of her she was busy gathering a small ball of energy into her hand, rushing, he found it, a small metal container in which he would find salvation. Opening it there were the grenades, pristine and untouched from the carnage around it, the ball was growing, it shone fiercely, he pulled the pin and aimed. They both exploded, warp energies and anti-warp energies were annihilating themselves in a beautiful explosion trumping any he'd seen before. Which is the only thing he saw when he promptly lost his consciousness.

Borsa POV

Borsa burst into the room, angry about the noise being put out by the 2 of them, he was greeted by the sight of an unconscious Captain-General and a crying Olivia on her knees. He saw the container of the Psyk-Out grenades laid out open in front of him, He pieced it together, the devastation, unconscious Custodes and the grenades specifically used for only psykers, he knew Olivia went on a psychic rampage, but it looked like she didn't.

"You've awakened", the lockwarden said in a deep voice, "Olivia, you're an alpha+ psyker", She looked incredulous.

The Lord Commander Militant POV

"We have reports from telepathica psykers that large psychic signatures were detected coming from the palace", the head of the Astra Telepathica said. The Senatorum Imperialis was in chaos, scribes ran around, carrying numerous reports upon reports of sightings and disturbances coming from the palace. The high lords sat at a table, brooding over what to do next, "It's gone now, but almost all of my psykers sensed it, we believe its power is alpha+"

That elicited a gasp among the high lords, it was incredibly rare to find an alpha+ psyker, even more so to find one that could properly use their powers. Just like all those years ago, something was afoot, he wasn't stupid, he wasn't a high lord of terra for nothing, the Custodes were hiding something.

"Our Custodes Liaison is denying everything, they're not giving anything up", as expected of them, the Custodes were secretive, rarely gave any information, and rarely cared of the imperium outside the palace.

"Elements of the Lucifer Blacks report large noises and miniature explosions coming from the imperial palace, I have ordered them to high alert", it was time to give his report, just like everyone on the table, it was of course useless, the telepathica report gave all the information they needed.

"Techpriests in service to the palace confirm this, however I also believe they are hiding something from me", The mechanical voice of the fabricator-general was unmistakable, a machine-like voice that was cold and unforgiving with no emotion to give it an origin close to humans. "The Custodes are hiding something, let's put pressure on them, if they could hide it before, they definitely can't now"

"I agree, It's not agreeable that something of this magnitude be hidden from us", the Ecclesiarch said, his old voice crackled and dry from years of giving endless sermons to the uneducated masses.

"Are you sure, provoking the Custodes is a dangerous thing?", the slick voice of the grandmaster of the Officio Assassinorum objected against this, he always questioned other people's decision but never voiced his own.

"Then let's call a vote", the light voice of the master of the Adeptus Administratum sounded out, he was the youngest of the High lords, naive and obliviousness to the cold nature of the universe, he was optimistic when he first ascended to his position, thought he would change things for the people, he found too late the fruitlessness of his endeavors. "All in favor?"

Around the ancient table almost everyone raised their hands, except the grandmaster, who stubbornly refused to vote, believing that provoking the Custodes would bring their wrath.

"So how do we go about this, I mean do we just sanction them, maybe give them a tithe or?", the master of the Adeptus Administratum said.

"Let's just ask them and present them with all the evidence, they'll be forced to tell us, what excuse can you make up with that", the canonness said, the leader of the adeptus sororitas was direct, she did want to find out the truth, but had no intention of picking a fight with the emperor's guard, to do otherwise was heresy.

"Wait a minute, can we just go back to what that guy said with giving the Custodes a tithe", the Grand Provost Marshal was a stoic man at most times, but always cracked up when something especially humorous happened to him. There was laughs around the table, at the expense of the latest addition to the high lords of terra, all except from the Grandmaster of the assassinorum, which didn't participate in the humor.

"Alright alright settle down, lets go back to what the canoness said about that option, its low risk and we won't risk retaliation from the Custodes", the administrator said, eager to change the topic from himself. "All in favour?"

Everyone raised their hands again, the resolution was the easiest and the most sensible, no risk of confrontation with the Custodes and it was fortunate that the high lords here today were somewhat more coolheaded than the ones a century ago. This time, the assassin raised his hand, to do so would present himself as eager to pick a fight with Custodes, which in turn would show that he wanted to pick a fight with the Emperor as well.

"Alright gather the evidence, we meet with the Custodes-Liaison tomorrow, do we act outraged and demand an explanation or composed and don't really pressure them", He said with a perfectly composed voice, over the decades he learned how to use acts to influence other people, so much so that people couldn't tell if he was livid or secretly calm.

"Let's do angry, it'll pressure them but not enough to elicit a violent response", the assassin said, now actively participating in the conversation, even if it was just a sentence.

"Sounds good", he said, promptly ending the meeting