In the Emperor's name!

Earth-38297, somewhere in the Segmentum Tempestus…

Walking alone in the grand hallways of the Ecclesiarchal basilica on Ophelia VII, a robed figure followed by a scribe servo skull moved his way down the hall where he turned his attention to the Adepta Sororitas tending to their convent. The man was tall, his face obscured by the long and flowing robes he wore that obscured his body and face. The only indicator of the office he belonged to, was the gold-leaf etching of the Inquisitorial emblem on his back. Seeing it made some of the vassals and initiates immediately bow and step aside to let him walk past.

The basilica was massive and ancient, dating back to the age of apostacy itself, its many arching hallways, and chambers tall and shadowed even in the overhead lighting and torch servitors lighting the way. Approaching a door near the end of the southern halls of the structure, one that lead to the prison chambers of the basilica, the blue and green robed inquisitor stopped at the locked door of the subject he had come to inspect. There he found dozens of unarmored sisters bent at the knee or prostrated with their heads to the floor in acts of prayer in front of the locked cell, the door frame littered with candles and purity seals offered by those who had arrived but could not stay. Many giving thanks to the Emperor of Mankind, and his living saints.

He had heard much from the archbishops, the other ranking canonesses and even the other adepta sororitas who had interacted or were in the presence of who he had come to meet. How one day she had simply disappeared, blinked out of existence in the middle of a battle against the great enemy. Then more than a week later, she reappeared… Changed. Pure, unblemished, and yet her ferocity in battle was unmatched by her peers against the forces of the Drukhari raiders who laid siege on the planet of Galvas 3; an agri-world that was easy prey for the cruel sadists. But more strangely, the devilish creature fell in their droves and scores in her presence, cut by unseen blades or finding themselves in stunned confusion as she disappeared and reappeared somewhere else, delivering one killing blow after the other in their astonishment. Great vessels of war and floating war machines of terrible cruelty were crushed and pulverized by an unseen ****, as if gravity betrayed the flying Druhkari vehicles, or some vast invisible hand crushed them in its grasp. Never in any recorded encounter with the dark elves have the Imperium seen them flee empty handed of new slaves and victims. For the first time in many centuries, Galvas 3 was spared the cruel predations of the xenos pirates.

But like all things, after the calm of battle where miracles were the reason of victory, there soon came whispers and doubts. After the battle, the Canoness who single-handedly saved the planet, began to make sweeping changes in her retinue. The Sister Repentia were all cleared and pardoned of their sins by her command, declaring their penance had been fulfilled, confusing many among her peers and angering the cardinals. So much so they accused the Canoness of heresy when she ordered her sisters to offer the agri-world their medical and food supplies. They confronted her with their own forces; an entire retinue of arco-flagellants at their beck and call. Even the Inquisitor had the common sense to know that if she could wipe out an entire raiding party of the dark elves, what hope did THEY have? They didn’t. But what was surprising after she had destroyed the cardinals and their forces with but a gesture, it was revealed MANY of them were in fact mutated and branded with the mark of Chaos.

Which was why he was here.

Looking down at the many sisters of the Adepta Sororitas bowed and praying at the door of their Canoness, the Inquisitor found many of them were of the Repentia she had redeemed, their shaved heads regrowing their hair and the scars across their bodies already healing over time. Crossing the threshold of the heavy door and closing it behind him, the servo skull flitted over his head before the solid wood door clasped over the lock, sealing him inside. Looking around, the only illumination were the hundreds of candles lit around the entire circular chamber. There at its center was the woman he came to see, surrounded by his entourage of investigative staff who checked her over, unarmored and wearing only a linen cloth that left her limbs bare.

On one knee with her arms out, three of the inquisitor staff inspected her body, turning their attention up to the lord inquisitor to leave the Canoness and offer their findings. One adept offered a data pad to the man while the other two bowed, whispering their findings so the Canoness would not hear. Going over the data slate, the man nodded for his three vassals to leave him alone with the Canoness.

“Canoness Susanna Stormbringer…” Spoke the man as he pulled back the hood of his robes, revealing a nasty scar where his left eye would have been, his hair grey over his ears and a rough stubble over his chin. “You did what no other could have done on their own and sent the dark elves fleeing back to their nightmare realm between the spaces of space, then you took it upon yourself to defy millennia of tradition and freed the redeeming from their trials, you even tore down the cardinals of the planet you ‘rescued’, so why is it that when MY forces arrived, you surrendered? Why me and not through them?”

“To surrender to the Ecclesiarch tainted by Chaos would doom that world, to surrender to YOU spares it.”

Smirking at the response, the Inquisitor circled the woman.

“Yes… It does…”

Looking over her bare arms. He read the reports after her investigation. Her scars, her missing arm, it was as if she had returned to the world pure and unmarred, even her mind was pure, much to the shock of the psychana agents he had under his cabal. Not a single negative thought, memory or emotion stirred in her being. Only the Grey Knights of the Ordo Malleus could ever dare such a boast as to be so pure that chaos could not take root.

“How did you know the cardinals were corrupt? You and others had served them for many centuries without a hint of their TRUE allegiance.”

“Cruel men make cruel leaders make cruel cardinals.” Answered Susanna, matter of factly. “The Emperor of Man wished for mankind to thrive and prosper… He never took gratification in the suffering of his vassals, like Cardinal Klawe and his appetite for children. Or Cardinal Nemo and his ‘creative’ methods of punishment for servants who did nothing wrong.”

“Indeed, I’ve gone over their investigations when I arrived on the planet, it seems they had reputations when not posing as ideal agents of the church; the Red Skull, Madam Hydra, Zemo the Hellmut. Overnight you ended their reign on Galvas 3. Do you know what your sisterhood and the overall populace have been calling you?”

Breathing in sharply and closing her eyes, Susanna didn’t like to hear it, feeling the title belonged more to someone else better than her. One who had what she didn’t.

“The Invisible Woman...”

“Yes. The Invisible Woman, the unseen sister, the ghostly hand that could strangle a man and he’d never know his killer… Yet all the reports I’ve read showed that hand simply helping the downtrodden. It was subtle, you’d be surprised the efforts I had to go to find reports of people avoiding accidents because they felt a gentle hand pull them away at the right time, or a mugging victim saved and helped up by unseen hands, even the starving was given food at their hovels and the Ecclesiarch’s stores ran ever emptier because of it. You’d think the hive city had a guardian angel.”

“She’s… Just a person.”

“Indeed.” Scoffed the Inquisitor, finally turning to look Susanna in the eye. “Show me.”

Looking up at the now scowling man, Susanna gave an almost quick look of defiance before disappearing altogether, even her clothes vanished, leaving the plinth she crouched over seemingly empty. After a few seconds, she reappeared.

“Fascinating. My specialists had examined you inside and out. They claim your abilities are NOT the result of warp touch, how are you able to do this?”

“That’s not all I can do.” Standing up, she extended her arm, and suddenly the Inquisitor felt as if he were in the grasp of a giant hand hoisting him off his feet and pinning him to the wall. Instantly his three vassals barged through the heavy wooden door with weapons trained and firing without hesitation, only for the metal slugs to stop a foot away from her body, a rippling effect around each slug as if they had hit a puddle of water, stopping them in their trajectory. Letting the man go, the vassals tried to reload, ignoring the indignant cries of protests from the sisterhood behind them when the Inquisitor raised his hand to order his men to stand down.

“I do not know or understand how or why I can do what I can do, Lord Inquisitor. But I will find the truth of the matter.”

“We will discover many truths… Canoness.” Getting up from the floor and straightening himself up, the man smiled back at the scowling Canoness. “My name is Nicholai the Furious, I have a proposition for you, I am assembling a roster of agents from across the Imperium, people with… Extraordinary abilities that can be best served against the enemies of man than oddities amongst their peers.”

Narrowing her eyes and looking over to the rest of her sisterhood looking up to her, Susanna stepped down from the plinth and approached the Inquisitor. “What do you have planned?”

“I will be heading a campaign against the one great enemy, heading towards the segmentum solar to face the forces of chaos, we shall reclaim each fallen world touched by their ruinous claws.”

Clicking her bare heels together, Susanna folded her hands over her chest in the sign of the Aquilla, bowing her head. “Then you have my blade, Lord Inquisitor.”

“Good.” Turning at his heel, Nicholai left the room and gestured for her to follow him. “Come then Invisible Woman, come meet the rest of my Lady Liberators.”

*

She was armed and armored again in her resplendid power armor, rebuilt with the expertise of the Inquisitor’s smiths and polished to a mirror shine into a work of art. To her specifications, they repainted the black ceramite to an ocean blue with silvery trim, as were her master-crafted bolt pistol and chainsword. Looking over to the crew she was meant to lead, a strange sense of déjà vu overtook her.

Sitting on a crate and grinding the blade of a runed **** axe with a whet stone, a Fenrisian woman with braided locks looked back at her. An outcast from her tribe after finding the axe next to the body of a fallen rune priest of the space wolves, an axe she would not relent. Not by choice mind you, no one else could lift it but her. The moment their eyes met; the Fenrisian Valkyrie’s eyes glowed with the spark of electricity, a storm waiting to be unleashed. She would have destroyed her village in a raging tempest if not for Nicholai’s intervention.

Nearby, and leaning against the nearby wall and picking at her fingernails was a towering, statuesque woman whose brawn was matched only by her beauty. A woman from a high gravity world, she was born of Ogryn parentage, the first to ever be born not mishappen by her environment. Sold off by her owners, they dyed her skin green and used her as a circus freak before Nickolai found her beating the brains out of a chaos mutant who threatened the fairgrounds, she lived in.

Opposite her was a red-haired woman in a black leather body suit, armed with silencing weapons and filament blades sheathed at her thighs and back, her belt and chest sported the red hourglass emblem of her house in the assassinorium. The Black Widow, she called herself. Buzzing over her head, Susanna looked up to find a servo skull look her over, the small hint of curiosity hinted in its optical lenses before it spoke with the Inquisitor’s voice in a small vox attachment.

“This drone is designated W.A.S.P. She’ll be my eyes and ears over your shoulder as you perform your duties in the Emperor’s name.”

Nodding back at the servo skull, Susanna turned her attention back to her team when the Widow pointed back at her. “What is that on your armor?” Looking down, she found she gestured to the center of her chest plate. Before the alterations, her chest bore the wings and golden skull of the Emperor. But now, the skull was replaced with the number 4. “I thought you sisters found that kind of thing blasphemous.”

“What that?” Asked the green giantess, bending at the waist and ignoring the chuckle from the Valkerie as the green woman’s crude clothing showed off cleavage deep enough to lose your hand in. “What that mean?”

Tracing a finger over the etching in her armor, Susanna did not know WHY she requested the alteration. There was a feeling, a strong feeling to have it done. When she traced her finger over it, Susanna’s face softened, and she smiled warmly.

“I never understood why… But it felt right.” Feeling their vessel land and the drop ramp open to a battlefield outside, Susanna steeled herself, unsheathing her weapons and looking over her shoulder with a smirk. “COME Lady Liberators, for the Emperor!”