Chronicle, entry number three.
I was first assigned to the fleet of the Primarch Angron.
After one day, I was reassigned to the fleet of the Primarch Vulkan.
Nobody explained the change.
A World Eaters officer only told me: “You’re leaving because you’re still alive, and we’d like to keep it that way.” I am writing this from the infirmary of the Flameforger, where a very kind Salamander is giving me tea.
My hands are still shaking.
My fellow Remembrancers say there are two ways to conquer a world: with the fist or with the open hand.
This week I saw both.
I.
The Seven Minus Seven
Seen from orbit, the planet was an ancient Terra: blue oceans, cities lit up at night, skies full of primitive satellites.
On the bridge of the Conqueror, Khârn, captain of the World Eaters, read the Mechanicus reports with one eyebrow raised.
“It resembles Terra before the Old Night, my lord. Primitive technology. No Warp, no Astronomican. But there are individuals with superhuman abilities. They call themselves heroes.”
“Heroes?” Angron repeated, and the word came out as if it tasted of rust.
“Defenders of humanity?”
The Techmarine Gaius cleared his throat.
“Not exactly, my lord. According to intercepted records, these ‘Supes’ are the property of a corporation called Vought. They don’t fight for the people. They fight for contracts, for fame and for energy-drink sponsors.”
Angron went very still.
Those who knew him knew that was worse than when he shouted.
“A world where the powerful laugh at the weak and war has become a spectacle,” he said.
“I’ve lived in one of those before. They called it the arena.”
“Shall we order an orbital bombardment?” asked Khârn, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“No.” Angron rose from the throne.
“I want them to see it up close. To understand what real power is before their show is over.”
* * *
In New York, the sky went dark in the middle of the afternoon.
People looked up and saw a ship the size of a neighborhood floating over Manhattan, bristling with cannons, a winged skull on its prow.
In Seven Tower, the alarms would not stop blaring.
“What the fuck is that?” A-Train shouted, glued to the window.
“It’s gotta be marketing,” said The Deep, nervous.
“A new campaign. Right? It’s a new campaign, right?”
“If it’s a production, they blew the budget,” Homelander remarked, smiling, arms crossed.
“Gotta admit, the execs outdid themselves.”
Starlight wasn’t smiling.
She had seen staged bank robberies, rehearsed rescues and villains hired by the hour.
This looked like none of that.
“This looks way too real,” she said.
Then every screen in the city went dark at once.
When they came back, they showed an enormous face, crisscrossed with scars, with metal cables jutting from the back of the skull like an iron crown.
“People of this world. I have seen your corruption. Your false gods. Your frauds dressed up as saviors. I am Angron, Primarch of the Twelfth Legion, and I have come to judge you. If those who call themselves heroes believe they can defend this Earth, let them come forward. If not… I will crush you all the same.”
The screen showed a two-headed eagle and went dark.
“Act or not, that asshole thinks he’s hot shit,” said Homelander.
“You’re insane if you think you can fight that,” Queen Maeve told him.
Homelander looked at her with that smile of his that had nothing behind it.
“Maeve. I’m the leader. And I say we’re going to fight this… Angor, Aragorn, whatever his name is. Or do you think you can do something better?”
Maeve didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought. Move.”
And he flew out the window straight toward the ship, as if the sky belonged to him.
It had never occurred to him that it might not.
* * *
From the rooftop of a building in Brooklyn, a very particular group was watching the show.
“Holy shit,” said Hughie, his binoculars shaking.
“This is a massacre.”
“Should we do something?” asked Mother’s Milk.
They all turned toward Billy Butcher.
Butcher dragged a folding chair to the edge of the roof, sat down, pulled out a cigar and lit it with all the calm in the world.
“You’re watching it, mate. Just enjoy.”
“Seriously?” said Frenchie.
“I’ve waited my whole fucking life for this moment,” Butcher replied, settling in.
“Don’t ruin it with commentary.”
Kimiko thought about it for a second, shrugged, and sat down on the ground beside him.
Mother’s Milk sighed.
“Well…”
* * *
Homelander reached the ship and fired his eye lasers at it.
The adamantium plating glowed red.
All that was left was a little black mark, like a cigarette burn on an expensive sofa.
He frowned.
Fired again, harder.
The mark grew a little.
He climbed, built momentum and came down like a meteor, fist first, against the hull.
BOOM!
His arm vibrated all the way up to the shoulder.
When the smoke cleared, there was a dent in the ship the size of a dinner plate.
“This… this isn’t possible,” he muttered.
On the bridge, Angron watched him with his arms crossed.
“Pathetic,” he said.
“Open fire.”
The turrets woke.
Homelander dodged what he could and took what he couldn’t.
For the first time in his life he felt short of breath, felt his suit torn, felt something the others called pain and that he had only ever known from watching other people.
“YOU BASTARD!”
Meanwhile, in the streets, drop pods fell like a hailstorm of iron.
The World Eaters burst out of them with chainaxes roaring and advanced on the second-string Supes.
The Seven tried what they always did: pose, attack, and hope the script would save them.
Queen Maeve charged a marine in Terminator armor.
She hit him with everything she had.
There was a crunch, and it was her hand.
The marine didn’t even budge.
A-Train tried to cut through the formation at super speed.
One World Eater sidestepped him as if he’d seen him coming since breakfast, and another swept his legs.
The speedster tumbled down the avenue, screaming.
Black Noir fought well.
For a few seconds.
Then he found himself face to face with Khârn, and the seconds ran out.
The Deep raised his arms toward the harbor.
“Friends of the ocean! Help me!”
A school of sharks answered the call.
A heavy bolter answered the sharks.
The Deep, limping, dragged himself backward.
“Wait, wait, don’t kill me! I’ll give you whatever you want! The fish know where there’s sunken treasure!”
The marine looked at him for one long second.
“The fish,” he repeated, like someone trying to decide whether that counted as an insult.
He didn’t think about it any further.
Starlight was left alone in the middle of the avenue, lit by her own light.
A World Eater lifted her by the neck with a single hand.
“That was a good try,” he told her.
“But it wasn’t enough.”
He knocked her out carefully—with as much care as someone three meters tall with a chainaxe can manage—and laid her on the ground.
“Take her to the ship,” he ordered the Imperial Guardsmen coming up behind.
“This one didn’t hide. Let the Primarch see her.”
* * *
Angron came down in person.
He landed in the middle of Fifth Avenue and the asphalt sank beneath his feet like bread dough.
Homelander hurled himself at him with a roar, eyes blazing.
The beam struck Angron full in the chest.
The armor heated up.
Angron kept walking.
“Your lasers are toys,” he said.
He dodged the second shot with a leap, landed in front of him and delivered a kick that sent him through three buildings.
Homelander rose from the rubble, cape in tatters, and charged again.
This time Angron didn’t move.
He waited.
And when he had him close, he grabbed him by the throat with one hand.
“A god among men?” he said, lifting him off the ground.
“Here you are only a man among gods.”
There was no ceremony.
No final speech.
Angron had seen too many arenas to give anyone a pretty last act.
When it was all over, he stood looking at the rest of the Seven strewn along the avenue and said, almost to himself:
“This is only the beginning.”
* * *
On the rooftop, Butcher took a long drag on his cigar.
“Never thought I’d say this,” he remarked, “but I’d buy that big bastard a beer.”
Hughie’s face was green.
“Butcher… what if they come for us next?”
“Hughie, mate.” Butcher clapped him on the back.
“We’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Today is Christmas.”
* * *
The surrender came within days.
No army in the world could do more than Homelander, and Homelander hadn’t done anything.
In the United Nations Assembly, in front of cameras from all over the planet, the leaders signed a document they didn’t even finish reading.
Angron stood before them.
“This world is no longer a free nation. It is no longer a sovereign planet. It belongs to the Imperium of Man. Whoever dares to defy the will of the Emperor will learn what real war is. And as of today, the ‘heroes’ are finished. If anyone wants to protect the people, let them enlist. Let them bleed like everyone else.”
Nobody applauded.
But in many homes, far from the cameras, there were people who, for the first time in years, stopped being afraid of the men who flew.
And in a bar in Brooklyn, an Englishman in a long coat raised his glass to the television.
“To the right monsters,” said Billy Butcher.
No one knew yet that that line was going to land him a job.
II.
The Shield and the Anvil
Far from there, in another reality, the Flameforger emerged from the Webway wrapped in golden light.
It was a ship of deep emerald green, with the silhouette of a dragon etched on its wing.
On its bridge, Vulkan, Primarch of the Salamanders, gazed at a world without satellites, without radio, without factories.
A world of castles and dirt roads.
“Feudal technology level, my lord,” an officer reported.
“But there is a strange energy on the surface. It isn’t the Warp.”
“What is it, then?”
“We don’t know. But whatever it is… what’s coming out of that point is worse than many things we’ve seen. A small village is under attack.”
Vulkan was already on his feet.
“My sons,” he said over the vox, “prepare for descent. There are people in danger.”
In the hangars, hundreds of fists struck hundreds of chests.
* * *
Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero, had been fighting alone for so long that he no longer remembered what it was like not to be tired.
The Wave of Catastrophe kept spewing monsters onto the village, and he, Raphtalia and Filo could barely hold it back.
The other three heroes—the ones who were supposed to be there—had not shown up.
Then the sky thundered.
“What the hell is that?” Naofumi panted.
What looked like meteorites fell around the village, gouging out craters.
From each one emerged giants in green and black armor, with flamers, swords and firearms.
And from one of them emerged one bigger than all the rest, with skin black as ebony and eyes red as embers, carrying a hammer as big as a door.
“Into the fire!” he roared.
“ONTO THE ANVIL!” a hundred voices answered him.
The Salamanders didn’t just fight.
They fought in an orderly fashion.
One squad burned monsters; another formed a shield wall; a third guided the villagers out of danger, carrying the elderly in their arms as if they were children.
After a few minutes, the Wave closed and the sky was blue again.
Naofumi dropped to the ground, gulping for air.
He saw the giant with the hammer walking toward him and got up as best he could, shield raised.
The giant stopped two paces away.
“Are you the warrior who fought those abominations alone?”
“Who’s asking?” said Naofumi.
He didn’t trust anyone.
He had his reasons.
“My men saw you fight, you and your… team.”
“Yeah. Well. The other heroes were supposed to be here too, but…”
“Those idiots don’t know how to work together,” Raphtalia cut in.
“Master Naofumi had to set them straight last time, and they’re still complaining.”
Before the giant could answer, something tugged at his armor around knee height.
It was Filo, her eyes like saucers.
“Ooooooh! What amazing armor, mister!”
Vulkan stared at her.
And then he smiled.
He knelt—and even so he was still taller than Naofumi—and placed an enormous hand on her head, with a gentleness no one would ever have imagined those fingers could hold.
“I am Vulkan, Primarch of the Salamanders. I have come to bring the light of my father, the Emperor of Mankind.”
“Emperor?” Naofumi repeated.
“Of mankind?” Raphtalia repeated.
“Can you eat it?” asked Filo.
* * *
That night, around a campfire, Naofumi told him everything.
The summoning.
The false accusation.
King Aultcray and his daughter Malty, whom everyone called Myne.
The stolen money, the shattered reputation, the other heroes who looked down their noses at him.
The Waves that came again and again while he paid for a crime he hadn’t committed.
Vulkan listened without interrupting.
When Naofumi finished, the Primarch sat staring into the fire for a while.
“Despite all of that, you keep fighting for them,” he said.
“Your will is impressive, Shield Hero.”
Naofumi didn’t know what to say.
It had been a long time since anyone had told him something good without wanting something in return.
“Tell me,” Vulkan went on, rising.
“This King Aultcray. Where is he?”
“Wait. Why do you want to know?”
Vulkan rested the hammer on his shoulder.
“Because your story is full of injustices, and they all bear the same seal. I believe it is time this king learned the judgment of the Emperor.”
“You can’t be thinking of confronting the king!” Raphtalia said, alarmed.
“The crown does not make the king,” Vulkan replied.
“Come with me, and I promise you this world will know the truth.”
Naofumi was silent for a long while.
Part of him was afraid of what might happen.
The other part… the other part had spent months dreaming of seeing Myne’s face when someone finally exposed her lies.
“All right,” he said.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
The Thunderhawk landed in the main square of Melromarc with the Flameforger hanging in the sky, blotting out the sun.
The palace guards went pale at the sight of the Primarch.
They didn’t move.
They couldn’t.
“I have come to see the king,” said Vulkan.
The doors opened by themselves.
In the throne room, Aultcray tried to keep up his usual arrogant expression, though one eyelid was twitching.
“Who are you to present yourselves before a king like this?”
“I am Vulkan, Primarch of the Eighteenth Legion of the Imperium of Man. I have come to judge you and your kingdom.”
“How dare you?” The king saw Naofumi behind the giant and his face lit up with hatred.
“You! You’re behind this! I knew I should have had you executed!”
Vulkan struck the floor with the haft of his hammer.
The boom rolled through the entire palace; a painting fell in the east wing.
“Silence. He has nothing to do with this. He is the victim of your lies. He and his party faced the Waves while your heroes fought among themselves.”
At that moment the doors swung open and the other three heroes came running in, with Myne glued to Motoyasu’s arm.
“So it was true!” exclaimed the Spear Hero.
“Naofumi, allied with invaders. I expected nothing better from you.”
“Great,” Naofumi sighed.
“The heroes are here.”
Vulkan looked at them for a second.
“These are the ones who are going to save this world? I see only children playing at being warriors.”
“Hey!” Ren protested.
“We’re the chosen heroes!” said Itsuki.
“You were deceived by a corrupt king and his daughter,” Vulkan replied.
“That’s a lie!” Myne shrieked, with tears that came to her suspiciously easily.
Vulkan didn’t answer her.
He just looked at her.
Myne stopped crying mid-tear.
Motoyasu attacked.
It was a quick, strong thrust, straight at the Primarch’s chest.
Vulkan didn’t step aside.
The spear struck the armor and stopped as if it had hit a mountain.
Vulkan took hold of it with two fingers, lifted it with Motoyasu still clinging to it, and flung him against the wall.
The Spear Hero slid to the floor and stayed there, gazing at stars only he could see.
“I have seen enough,” said Vulkan.
“But it will not be I who judges them. Let the queen of this world judge them.”
* * *
Queen Mirellia had returned to the capital that very afternoon, alerted by the rumors.
She received Vulkan in the great hall, her family in chains before her and her face like stone.
“Mom, it’s a misunderstanding!” Myne was screaming.
“We didn’t do anything!”
“Your Majesty,” said Vulkan, inclining his head.
“I took the liberty of sending men to every village your heroes passed through. I want you to see what they found.”
A servo-skull floated to the center of the hall and projected images: villages that Itsuki, Ren and Motoyasu had “saved” and then abandoned, now without food, without water, without a ruler.
And then, the same villages Naofumi had helped: people working the fields, children playing, a hand-painted sign that read Thank you, Holy Shield Saint.
There were witnesses.
There were documents.
There was, above all, silence.
“I have seen enough,” the queen said at last.
Aultcray and Myne were judged as Mirellia saw fit, and their punishment was as humiliating as their lies had been.
The three heroes were given a second chance… with conditions.
“You made a thousand mistakes,” Vulkan told them, “but at least you’re capable of admitting you were fools. That’s a start.”
“If you wish to go on being heroes,” the queen added, “you will take it seriously from now on. And you owe Naofumi an apology.”
All three gave it.
Through gritted teeth and red-faced, but they gave it.
Naofumi, whose stomach had been in knots for months, felt he could finally breathe.
Raphtalia took his hand.
Filo started dancing around Vulkan’s leg, who had already accepted his destiny as a children’s climbing pole.
* * *
The alliance was signed a week later.
“The Waves will keep coming,” Vulkan told the queen.
“My Salamanders will face them alongside your people. We will bring doctors, engineers, clean water. In exchange, I ask for loyalty to the Imperium of Man. Your laws and customs will remain your own. But the corruption ends.”
“And the other kingdoms?” asked Mirellia.
“Those we will evaluate. One by one. With patience.” Vulkan paused.
“And with a hammer close at hand, just in case.”
From the walls of the capital, Naofumi watched columns of Imperial tanks rolling along the roads, Tech-priests of the Mechanicus installing water purifiers while praying in binary, villagers bringing bread to the green giants and the giants crouching down to receive it.
“Looks like things are going to change a lot around here,” he murmured.
“Maybe, for the first time,” said Raphtalia, “this world has a real chance.”
In the square below, Filo was trying to climb onto a Leman Russ tank.
A Salamander lifted her down gently.
Filo climbed back up.
The Salamander sighed, glanced around, and let her stay.
* * *
Chronicle, entry number four (annex).
I asked the Primarch Vulkan why he and the Primarch Angron conquered in such different ways.
He thought about it while hammering out a horseshoe for a farmer’s horse—himself, with his own hands, because “the village smith was sick.” In the end he told me: “My brother remembers the chains. I remember the fire that warms. We are both sons of the same father, Remembrancer. He simply got a worse world.” Then he asked me to hold the horse for him.
It bit me.
The horse, not the Primarch.
That night I received a transfer order signed in purple ink and perfumed with something expensive.
It read: “The Phoenix requires a witness with artistic sensibility.” I asked the logistics officer whether they had the wrong person.
He said they probably did, but that the Primarch Fulgrim does not accept returns.
I’ll be releasing 2 chapters a day until we reach the final 10 chapters.
After that, I’ll switch to 1 chapter per day.
Thank you for reading and for your support!