Summary: Twelve years ago, Cobalt was sent to destroy a St. George Chapterhouse, and was discovered in the act by a six-year-old girl. Apparently, quick reflexes and panic are a deadly combination, because he knocked her out before either of them could react or think of a less violent solution. And he couldn't exactly leave her to wake up and tell everyone that there was an intruder. So he took her with him. Turns out, it was one of his better mistakes.

Disclaimer: Don't own Talon, don't own Riley, don't own Madison.

A/N: Well, I have returned, and it's with a story that DOESN'T involve angst and painful redemption arcs. As you can probably tell by the summary, this takes place BEFORE the series, and deals with Riley in his early rogue days. It's been a lot of fun to write, and I'm excited to share it with you. I've finished everything except for the epilogue, so it won't be abandoned, and I should update at least once a week.

Chapter 1

This was, by far, the worst decision that Cobalt had ever made.

To be fair, it wasn't completely his fault. He had just broken into a St. George Chapterhouse, hacked into their servers, and planted a bomb. When he opened the door and there was a person on the other side, it was pure reflex that made him drag her from the open hallway and put her into a chokehold. And when he realized that this person was a human child, he couldn't exactly let her go.

Two options.

Option one: snap her neck. The smartest choice, a clean death, but as she flailed in his grasp, desperate to escape, he couldn't bring himself to kill her. She was too young, and too damn small for him to murder.

Option two: tighten his hold, cut off blood flow to the brain, and send her into blissful unconsciousness. Her squirming stopped, and he was left holding a deadweight.

This did not solve many problems.

"Shit," he whispered, nearly dropping the child. It was a girl, maybe six or seven, maybe younger, wearing a frilly yellow dress. A child, and not just a child in the sense that some of the soldiers that he had fought were in their teens. A literal child. In the Chapterhouse that he had just planted a bomb in.

He had not been trained for this.

Okay, Cobalt. This is… bad. Very bad. He closed the door and set the girl down on the floor, the count of the timer in the back of his head. Thirteen minutes. He didn't have much time before everyone in the building died, him included. And he had an unconcious girl to deal with. Since when did the Order have children in their buildings? Were they recruiting this young? Was she the offspring of some other soldiers? Were there women in the Order in the first place?

Focus, Cobalt! He stabbed a hand through his hair. He had a problem, and he needed to fix it before everyone died. He had a number of options, none of which were good, but he had to pick one before the timer ran out. The mission wasn't a failure yet.

Option one: The most obvious— ditch the girl and leave. She was a child of the Order, and that meant that she'd be raised as a dragon killer, and killing her young meant that she couldn't kill him down the line. But… she was so young, and she looked so innocent while unconcious. She didn't know any better. She never got a chance to form her own opinions. She didn't deserve to die.

Option two: Take the girl and leave. She could probably fit in his duffel bag. But he couldn't exactly take her back to Talon, and he couldn't drop her off at a different Chapterhouse. And if she was here, could other children be wandering down the halls, as well? He was okay with killing soldiers, but children were so tiny and fragile. He didn't want them to die.

Option three: ditch her, disarm the bomb, go back to Talon as a failure. That could work… that would probably work… unless she woke up in the next few minutes. People recovered from chokeholds fairly quickly, and she'd definitely run to the nearest soldier and tell them that a strange man had knocked her out. Bad idea.

Option four: Take the girl, disarm the bomb, and… what? Go back to Talon? Talon would probably kill her for association with the Order, or force her into the organization. Go rogue? That was terrifying. But he could wait around for a few weeks and then drop her back off, that way. And then maybe go back to Talon and claim that he had gone off the grid for safety reasons. They'd hate it, but he had done stupid things like that before.

He had ten minutes left. He had to make a decision before they all died.

"Shit," Cobalt repeated, and stuffed the girl into his duffel bag. She did, in fact, fit inside of it, save for a leg. He retreated back into the room to find the bomb, flashing at—

"Shit."

Five minutes. There was no way it was already at five minutes. And it kept going down, faster and faster. Was this a glitch? No, Talon didn't give out weaponry that was this faulty, which meant… it meant…

Cobalt turned off the device with shaking hands that seemed to have lost their feeling. Talon had to have done this on purpose. There wasn't any other explanation that made sense. Which meant that they wanted him dead. What did he do? Was it his sympathy for humans? His dismissiveness of authority? He didn't think that anything he had done would've marked him such a liability that they'd send him to die.

Well, I guess that settles whether or not I'm going back to Talon.

The duffel bag shifted slightly, and Cobalt's eyes widened. He didn't have too much time before the girl woke up, and after that, he was as good as dead.

Well. He had just broken into an Order Chapterhouse, went rogue, and kidnapped a child in less than thirty minutes.

Cobalt bolted.

A/N: No one said that Cobalt handled his problems rationally.

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