Chronicle, entry number ninety-one.
It wasn’t a joke.
The Emperor is going to hold a parade.
On Terra.
With all the Primarchs, all the Legions and every world that has joined the Imperium through the Webway.
They’re calling it Unification Day.
Magnus explained to me that it isn’t a celebration: it’s a message.
“When the enemy starts moving in the dark,” he told me, “the best thing you can do is turn on every light.” But before the parade, the Emperor had an appointment.
On a world where, according to the report, “there is more democracy than anywhere else in the universe.” The report was underlined three times.
Ironically, I think.
I.
Super Earth
Super Earth was the capital planet of a human federation that had made managed democracy its religion.
Its citizens voted, worked, consumed and died for liberty, and often in that order.
Its elite soldiers, the Helldivers, were launched from ships in orbit inside steel pods toward planets full of giant bugs, killer robots and incomprehensible aliens.
Their life expectancy in combat was about two minutes.
They celebrated it.
When the Emperor arrived, Super Earth was under attack.
The Illuminate—an alien race of energy beings, with shields, psychic technology and absolute contempt for human life—had launched a direct assault on the capital.
Their ships hovered over Mega City One.
Their energy nodes fired beams at the skyscrapers.
And the Helldivers were falling from the sky by the hundreds, shouting slogans, to very little effect.
“Report, Malcador,” said the Emperor from the bridge of his ship.
Malcador the Sigillite consulted the scroll he always carried with him.
“The Illuminate are weak, but numerous, my lord. And there is something else. Magnus sent me a report this morning. He says the orks and Chaos are still weak in these universes. But that they’re moving. That they’re looking for doors.”
“Then we’ll close every one we can.” The Emperor rose.
“Starting with this one.”
II.
For Democracy
The Custodes descended on Mega City One like a golden storm.
A Helldiver running down a burning street, his armor full of holes and his helmet askew, saw them land in front of him.
Ten giants of gold, with spears and shields, wreathed in light.
He froze for a moment.
Then he raised his rifle and screamed at the top of his lungs:
“FOR DEMOCRACY!”
He paused.
“Who are those guys?!”
A Custodian looked down at him.
“Allies.”
“Oh! Great! For democracy!”
“If you say so.”
* * *
The Illuminate’s main node stood in the center of the city: a pyramid of violet energy that powered the shields of the entire enemy fleet.
Malcador walked toward it alone.
He was an old man in a gray robe, with a staff topped by a flame and a slightly stooped back.
The Illuminate, from their ships, saw him approach and didn’t worry.
He looked like a grandfather who had gotten lost.
Malcador raised his staff and began to chant.
It was an ancient chant, in a forgotten tongue, slow and deep in rhythm.
With each verse, the flame on his staff grew larger.
With each verse, lances of white light appeared around him, suspended in the air.
Ten.
A hundred.
A thousand.
The Illuminate began to worry.
The chant ended.
Malcador lowered his staff.
A thousand lances of light shot toward the energy pyramid all at once.
The pyramid ceased to exist.
The shields of the Illuminate fleet went down.
The Custodes boarded their ships.
The Helldivers bombarded them with everything they had.
In half an hour, the battle was over.
Malcador walked back toward the Emperor, leaning on his staff, a little more tired than before.
“Done, my lord.”
“Malcador never disappoints,” said the Emperor.
The Sigillite smiled.
“Don’t get used to it. I’m getting old.”
III.
Imperial Managed Democracy
The alliance with Super Earth was signed the next day.
The federation’s government, made up of smiling politicians, publicists and a surprisingly efficient Ministry of Truth, welcomed the Emperor with a ceremony full of flags, anthems and fireworks.
The terms were simple.
Super Earth joined the Imperium.
In exchange, it kept its political system, its elections and its anthem.
The official name of the alliance was the subject of a six-hour negotiation, during which Malcador fell asleep twice.
In the end, it came out like this: Imperial Managed Democracy.
“What exactly does that mean?” asked a journalist.
“It means you vote,” Malcador explained, “and we manage.”
“And if we vote wrong?”
“We manage harder.”
The journalist wrote it down enthusiastically.
The next day, the headline of every newspaper on Super Earth was: “MORE DEMOCRACY THAN EVER!”
* * *
That night, every channel on Super Earth aired a propaganda spot prepared by the Ministry of Truth.
It lasted four minutes.
It had epic music, close-ups of saluting Helldivers, Custodes walking in slow motion, explosions, flags and a little boy in an oversized helmet gazing up at the sky with tears in his eyes.
It ended with a voice-over:
“One Humanity. One Emperor. One Eternal Democracy. Are you doing your part?”
The Emperor watched the spot aboard his ship.
He said nothing for a long while.
“It’s excessive,” he said at last.
“I know, my lord,” said Malcador.
“I like it.”
“I know, my lord.”
Chronicle, entry number ninety-two.
The Helldivers have joined the Imperium’s campaigns against the Terminids (bugs) and the Automatons (robots).
The Tech-priests are delighted with the second campaign.
At last there’s an entire war against thinking machines and nobody’s telling them to stop.
A Helldiver asked me for an autograph.
I told him I was nobody.
He said: “Nobody survives this long in this war without being somebody.” I signed his helmet.
He died two days later.
A comrade of his brought the helmet back to me.
It said: “He did it for democracy.” I keep it in my cabin.
IV.
Terra Dresses for the Occasion
Unification Day dawned sunny on Terra.
The Imperial Palace, a city the size of a continent, had been decorated for weeks.
Banners of every Legion hung from the walls.
The Triumphal Way, a forty-kilometer avenue that ran through the Palace from end to end, had been cleaned, polished and blessed three times by the Mechanicus.
On both sides, stands for a hundred million spectators.
And the guests began to arrive.
From every world of the Webway.
From every universe the Imperium had touched.
Tobías Garza was there with his notebook, his Fulgrim-made formal suit and a press pass that had cost him three forms and an interview with a Custodian.
This is what he saw.
* * *
Naofumi Iwatani, the Shield Hero, arrived with Raphtalia and Filo.
Filo, the giant bird who could turn into a little girl, wore a white dress and ran up and down the Triumphal Way yelling at every soldier who passed.
“Hey! You! Are you strong? Will you let me ride in your tank? Say yes! Say yes!”
“Filo,” Naofumi sighed.
“Leave them alone.”
“But the tank is so pretty!”
“All tanks are pretty to you.”
“Because they are!”
An Astra Militarum tank commander let her climb onto his.
Filo refused to get off for the rest of the day.
* * *
Rein Shroud, the new Hero, arrived with Kanade, Tania, Sora, Runa, Tina and Nina.
Kanade spent the day hunting for food stalls.
She found seven.
She ate everything at all seven.
“Didn’t I tell you being Hero doesn’t come with free food?” Rein reminded her.
“This isn’t free,” said Kanade, her mouth full.
“You paid for it.”
* * *
The students of U.A., the hero academy from Lorgar’s world, arrived in formation, in dress uniform.
They were accompanied by an Astra Militarum Commissar who had given them a welcome speech on the ship.
“Listen to me carefully,” he had said.
“This is the most important event in the history of the Imperium. If any one of you does something stupid, I will execute you myself.”
“Define ‘stupid’?” asked Kaminari, the electric kid. The source of this chapter is g.com.
The Commissar stared at him for a long while.
“That,” he said, “is stupid.”
Kaminari didn’t say another word all day.
Behind them came the Sisters of Truth: the order founded by Ibara Shiozaki, the girl with hair made of vines.
They wore white and red robes and walked in silence, eyes fixed ahead.
Several observers remarked that they seemed very disciplined.
Others, that they seemed too disciplined.
Lorgar, who watched them pass from the grandstand, kept his eyes on them for a long time.
* * *
Billy Butcher, now a Commissar, arrived in his long coat and skull-badged cap with Terror, his French bulldog, who wore a little matching Commissar’s cap.
He walked over to Naofumi, who was trying to convince Filo to get down off the tank.
“Oi, mate,” Butcher said to him.
“Nice shield.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what this dog does?” Butcher pointed at Terror, who was eyeing Naofumi with a distinctly unfriendly look.
“He’s ripped the bollocks off blokes a lot harder than you.”
Naofumi took a step back.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Out of affection,” said Butcher.
“He likes you.”
Terror growled.
Naofumi wasn’t sure that was affection.
* * *
Anakin Skywalker arrived with Padmé Amidala, now Chancellor of the Imperial Republic, and their two small children, Luke and Leia.
Luke spent the day looking at the ships.
Leia spent the day looking at the soldiers.
“Daddy,” said Leia.
“Are those the clones?”
“Some of them.”
“And the one with the blue helmet?”
Anakin looked where his daughter was pointing.
He smiled.
“That’s Captain Rex.”
“It’s Captain Rex!” Leia squealed, and took off running.
Rex, standing in formation at his post, saw a six-year-old girl run up to him and stand there staring at him with shining eyes.
He gave her a military salute.
Leia returned it.
It was, according to Anakin, the happiest moment of his daughter’s entire life.
* * *
Senku Ishigami arrived with Chrome and Kohaku.
He had come straight from a ride in the explorer vehicle that the Tech-priest Varl had finally let him drive.
“How far did you go?” Tobías asked him.
“Seventy-five kilometers,” said Senku, his eyes shining.
“Ten billion percent exciting.”
“And Varl?”
Senku pointed at a Tech-priest trailing behind him, pale, robe askew, wearing an expression of deep trauma.
“Varl needs a rest.”
V.
The Twenty
The meeting of the Primarchs took place in a private hall of the Palace, before the parade.
For the first time since the founding of the Imperium, they were all there.
The usual eighteen.
And the two new ones.
There were hugs.
There were slaps on the back.
There were jabs.
Guilliman was the first to speak, consulting his data-slate.
“By my calculations, exactly three weeks have passed since the Webway began.”
“Three weeks?” roared Russ.
“I’ve been gone two years!”
“Time runs differently on each world of the Webway, brother. You know that.”
“Well, on my world it ran a lot! I had time to eat an entire Sea King!”
“That explains everything,” Magnus muttered.
* * *
Fulgrim arrived with Aura and Mare, who were carrying his cape and his mirror.
The dark elf twins were bored.
Fulgrim was radiant.
“Brothers! What joy! What beauty! What…!” He stopped when he saw Perturabo.
“Oh. Hello.”
“Fulgrim,” said Perturabo, without looking up from his cup.
“I’ve seen the pictures of your new gardens. The marble in the columns is second-rate.”
“It’s Chemosian marble!”
“It’s second-rate.”
“It’s the finest marble in the universe!”
“In your universe, perhaps.”
Fulgrim was struck speechless with indignation.
Aura and Mare exchanged a small smile.
They had never seen anyone do that to their lord.
* * *
Corax was in a corner, talking with Vulkan.
“There’s a boy,” he was saying, “on one of my worlds. Naruto. He’s an idiot. He’s loud. He’s unbearable.”
“But?”
“But he’s noble.” Corax paused.
“And he knows the best ramen in the universe.”
Vulkan looked at him in surprise.
“You eat ramen?”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Everybody knows, brother. Tobías wrote it in his chronicle.”
Corax turned his head very slowly toward the chronicler, who was in the opposite corner, pretending not to listen.
Tobías swallowed.
* * *
Russ came over to Vulkan with a wooden box under his arm.
“Brother. I’ve brought you a present.”
“A present? For me?”
“From my pirate world. A mad scientist named Vegapunk gave it to me in exchange for a barrel of meat.”
Vulkan opened the box.
Inside was a fruit.
It was large, round and purple, with swirls drawn across its skin.
“What is it?”
“A Devil Fruit,” said Russ.
“It gives you powers. This one belongs to a guy named Kaido. It turns you into a dragon.”
Vulkan stared at the fruit.
“Into a dragon?”
“Into a dragon.” Russ clapped him on the shoulder.
“But careful: if you eat it, you can never swim again. Stay away from water.”
“I don’t swim.”
“Just in case.”
Vulkan closed the box very carefully.
He tucked it under his arm.
“Thank you, brother.”
“And they say it tastes awful. So eat it in one bite.”
* * *
And then the new ones arrived.
Kratos came in first.
With his pale skin, his red tattoos and the armor of the II Legion, blood red and ash white.
Beside him was Deimos, his brother, bearing the banner of the Godeaters.
The Primarchs fell silent.
Angron was the first to approach.
The two looked at each other for a long while.
They were almost the same size.
They had the same look: that of someone who has lost a great deal and survived on rage.
“So you’re the one who kills gods,” growled Angron.
“And you’re the one who breaks crowns,” Kratos replied.
They shook hands.
They squeezed.
They kept squeezing.
For five minutes.
Neither gave an inch.
In the end, they both let go at the same moment, without a word, and sat down side by side.
Russ leaned toward Angron.
“Hey, brother,” he whispered.
“I think somebody’s copying your style.”
“Shut up, Russ.”
Konrad Curze, from his dark corner, gave a dry laugh.
“Two brothers with the same traumas. How original. The Emperor should diversify his catalog.”
Nobody paid him any attention.
But Kratos and Angron looked at him at the same time, with exactly the same expression, and Curze shut up.
* * *
The last to arrive was the Doom Slayer.
He came in without a sound, in his green armor with his helmet on.
He looked at his nineteen brothers, one by one.
He nodded once.
The Lion nodded back.
No one else knew what to say.
The Slayer didn’t say anything either.
He sat down in a chair, crossed his arms and stayed perfectly still, helmet on, for the entire meeting.
“Does he never take it off?” Fulgrim asked quietly.
“No,” said the Lion.
“Not even to eat?”
“I’ve never seen him eat.”
“And to sleep?”
“I’ve never seen him sleep.”
Fulgrim grew thoughtful.
“How mysterious. How dramatic. I love it.”
VI.
The Parade
At noon, the trumpets sounded.
The Unification Day parade lasted nine hours.
The Astra Militarum regiments opened it.
The Cadians, with their camouflage uniforms and their iron discipline.
The Krieg men, with their masks and their shovels, in an absolute silence that made your hair stand on end.
The Catachans, shirtless, with their knives, grinning for the cameras.
The Valhallans, in their fur coats, sweating buckets under the Terran sun.
Then the Helldivers, who didn’t march in formation but ran down the avenue shouting “FOR DEMOCRACY!” and throwing colored smoke grenades.
The Tech-priests in the stands filed a formal complaint.
Next, a Leman Russ tank with its hatch open.
Out of it poked Billy Butcher, a beer in his hand and Terror in his lap, waving to the crowd as if he were the King of England.
Next, a regiment of elite soldiers from a small world of magical warfare, led by a little girl barely a meter thirty tall with a rifle and a doll’s face.
Tanya von Degurechaff executed the most perfect military salute Terra had ever seen.
The Emperor, from the grandstand, inclined his head.
Tanya nearly fainted.
* * *
And then came King’s float.
It was a golden platform, towed by a tank, decorated with flags and flowers.
In the center, seated on a throne, was King.
In his Commissar’s uniform.
With his scar.
His hands clutching the arms of the throne.
Wearing the face of a man who had no idea how he’d ended up there.
An enormous banner, hung across the front of the float, read:
THE STRONGEST HERO IN THE IMPERIUM
The crowd roared.
A hundred million people screaming his name.
King went white.
His heart began to pound.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
Ba-dum.
The Triumphal Way’s loudspeakers picked up the sound and amplified it by mistake.
For three minutes, the King Engine thundered throughout the Imperial Palace.
The crowd went wild.
Behind King’s throne, standing, rode two more figures.
Genos, the blond cyborg, with an expression of absolute concentration, protecting King from threats that didn’t exist.
And Saitama, bald, in his yellow suit and white cape, eating a bag of potato chips and gazing at the crowd with total indifference.
“Master,” said Genos.
“Isn’t it impressive?”
“I’ve never been to one of these things,” said Saitama, chewing.
“It’s kind of loud.”
“It’s in your honor, Master.”
“No, it’s in King’s honor.”
“But you’re much stronger than King.”
“Yeah.” Saitama shrugged.
“But he’s got a better banner.”
* * *
After that came the clones of the 501st and the 212th, with Captain Rex and Commander Cody at their head.
Leia Skywalker climbed onto her father’s shoulders and screamed Rex’s name until she lost her voice.
After them came the Sisters of Truth, in close formation, behind an Exorcist tank: a war vehicle with a giant pipe organ in place of a cannon.
Standing on top of the tank, with an electric guitar plugged into the organ pipes, rode Kyoka Jirou, the headphone-jack girl from U.A., who had joined the order as a “combat musician.”
She played a four-minute guitar solo that rattled the windows of the Palace.
The crowd went wild.
The Tech-priests in the stands argued for an hour over whether it was heresy or liturgy.
In the end they concluded it was “heretical liturgy” and required further study.
Lorgar, in the Primarchs’ grandstand, listened to the entire solo with his eyes closed.
When it ended, he didn’t applaud.
He sat there, lost in thought, as if something in that music reminded him of something he didn’t want to remember.
* * *
Then came the Astartes Legions.
One by one, the twenty Legions marched down the Triumphal Way.
The Dark Angels; the Godeaters—Deimos at their head, bearing the standard of the omega pierced by a spear; the Emperor’s Children; the Iron Warriors; the White Scars on their bikes; the Space Wolves, howling; the Imperial Fists in perfect formation; the Night Lords in silence; the Blood Angels with their golden wings; the Iron Hands; the Hell’s Executioners with their horned skull; the World Eaters; the Ultramarines; the Death Guard wrapped in mist; the Thousand Sons; the Luna Wolves; the Word Bearers; the Salamanders; the Raven Guard; and the Alpha Legion, of whom no one ever found out exactly how many marched, because every time someone counted them they came up with a different number.
Then the Mechanicus, with its servitors, its servo-skulls and its censers.
Then the Imperial Knights, tall as buildings.
And at the very end, closing the parade, striding down the Triumphal Way with footsteps that shook the ground of the entire Palace, came an Imperator Titan.
It was a walking cathedral.
It was the size of a mountain.
On its back stood a fortified city complete with chapel, organ and barracks.
Its guns could destroy other Titans with a single shot.
A hundred million people fell silent as it passed.
Filo, still sitting on her tank, looked up with her mouth hanging open.
“Can I ride that one?”
“No,” said Naofumi.
“Say yes!”
“No.”
VII.
The Speech
When the Titan came to a halt at the end of the avenue, the Emperor rose.
A hundred million people fell silent at once.
“Some time ago,” said the Emperor, and his voice reached every corner of the Palace without any need for speakers, “we opened a door. We called it the Webway. Through it, we have found worlds that were suffering. Worlds ruled by false gods, by tyrants, by monsters. Worlds that had given up.”
He paused.
“Today, all of you are here. Heroes, soldiers, kings, children. Humans from a thousand different universes. You are not the same. You do not think alike. You do not pray alike. But you are here, together, beneath the same sky. That is the Imperium.”
The crowd roared.
The Emperor raised a hand.
Silence returned.
“But I will not lie to you.” His voice hardened.
“There is something else out there. Something that has found our door. Something that hides in the darkness, that whispers promises and seeks out those willing to listen to them. It is still weak. It is still far away. But it is moving.”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“That is why we are here today,” the Emperor continued.
“Not to celebrate what we have won. But to remember what we must protect. And so that this something, wherever it may be watching from, can see what awaits it if it dares to come out of the shadows.”
He raised his fist.
“For Humanity!”
“FOR HUMANITY!” roared a hundred million voices.
Up on the float, King fainted.
* * *
That night, while the celebration was still going on in the streets of the Palace, a messenger from the XVIII Legion came running into the Primarchs’ hall with an urgent report.
He handed it to Vulkan.
Vulkan read it.
He stood up.
“What is it, brother?” asked Guilliman.
“Orks,” said Vulkan.
“On one of my worlds. A city called New York. They came out of a portal. Out of their own Webway.”
Silence fell over the hall.
Magnus and Lorgar exchanged a look.
Vulkan picked up the wooden box with the devil fruit and tucked it under his arm.
“I’m going.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Russ.
“No, brother. This one is mine.”
And he left the hall.
Chronicle, entry number ninety-three.
Today I saw a hundred million people shout together.
I saw a Titan walk.
I saw a man who has never done anything in his life receive the greatest ovation in the history of humanity—and faint.
And I saw the Primarch Vulkan leave a party with a fruit under his arm to go fight orks.
If someone had told me all this two years ago, I would have told them they were out of their mind.
Tonight, before going to sleep, I felt it again.
That feeling.
The one from the ring.
The feeling that something is watching me.
I asked my Helldiver helmet to protect me.
I don’t know if it works.
But I feel better.
I’m an aspiring writer with many stories still waiting to be told and a deep passion for Warhammer.
I love creating dark worlds, epic battles, and flawed characters.
I write to learn and grow.