The screaming had stopped approximately fourteen minutes ago.
This was not, Brother-Marine noted with the clinical detachment of a consciousness that had long since burned away anything resembling emotional response, because the creatures had stopped dying. No, they continued to die with admirable consistency, their bodies rupturing and splitting and dissolving under the combined assault of bolter fire, chainsword teeth, and the occasional application of his ceramite-encased forehead to their chitinous skulls. The screaming had stopped because there was simply nothing left alive in his immediate vicinity capable of producing sound through conventional biological means.
The Tyranid swarm had been classified as a moderate threat by Inquisitorial assessment. Approximately forty thousand organisms of varying bioforms, ranging from the skittering masses of Termagants to the towering nightmare architecture of three Carnifexes that had been directing the assault on Hive City Tertius-Nine. The planetary defense forces had held for six hours before their lines had crumpled like parchment before a flame. The local Arbites had managed another two hours, fighting with the desperate fury of men who knew that retreat meant watching their families dissolved into biomass. The Planetary Governor had transmitted forty-seven increasingly hysterical requests for Astartes support before the astropathic choir had been overrun and consumed.
Brother-Marine had been the response.
Not a company. Not a squad. Not even a combat team of his battle-brothers.
Just him.
The Administratum records—those that still functioned after the great data-loss of M38, at least—listed him as belonging to no Chapter. This was technically accurate in the same way that describing a supernova as "warm" was technically accurate. He had belonged to a Chapter, once. He was reasonably certain of this fact, though the name had long since eroded from his memory like coastal rock before an endless tide. He remembered colors, sometimes. Blue, perhaps. Or green. Possibly yellow,though that seemed wrong for reasons he could not articulate. He remembered brothers, their faces now nothing but smeared impressions of ceramite and purpose. He remembered a Chapter Master whose name might have started with the letter 'M' or possibly 'K' or conceivably any letter in the Gothic alphabet.
What he remembered with perfect, crystalline clarity was war.
Ten thousand, two hundred and forty-seven years of it.
Give or take a few decades lost to warp transit and temporal anomalies.
His armor was a patchwork theology of a hundred different forges, each plate replaced and re-sanctified so many times that the original suit existed only as a philosophical concept. His left pauldron bore the faded echo of Chapter heraldry that no living soul could identify. His right pauldron displayed the kill-markings of seventeen separate Tyranid hive fleets, though he had stopped updating them six millennia ago when he ran out of available surface area. His helmet had been replaced entirely four thousand years ago after an unfortunate incident involving an Ork Warboss, a power klaw, and a very bad day that had ended with the Warboss's head decorating a pike and his original helmet decorating the inside of the Warboss's stomach.
The bolter in his hands had a name. He had given it a name, once, in a moment of what might have been sentimentality if his neurochemistry still supported such concepts. He had since forgotten the name. The bolter did not seem to mind. It continued to function with mechanical perfection, spitting mass-reactive death into the writhing xenos masses with a rhythm as steady and reliable as a heartbeat.
Not his heartbeat, of course. His hearts beat with the genetic perfection of the Emperor's design, twin drums of biological machinery that had not faltered in over a hundred centuries. But the metaphor remained applicable.
He squeezed the trigger again, and a Hormagaunt's skull ceased to exist in any meaningful capacity.
Another squeeze. Another Hormagaunt. The creatures were rushing toward him in a tide of chitin and claw, their synaptic controllers somewhere in the backline desperately trying to coordinate an assault pattern that might actually succeed in bringing him down. They had been trying this approach for the past three hours. The results had been, from the Tyranid perspective, suboptimal.
From his perspective, the results had been exactly as expected.
He pivoted on his left heel, the servo-motors in his armor's joints whining in protest at a maneuver that would have torn the ligaments of an unaugmented human. His chainsword came around in a horizontal arc that bisected two Termagants and removed the upper third of a third creature's skull. The teeth of the weapon shrieked against chitin, throwing a spray of ichor and biological matter in a pattern that a less experienced warrior might have found distressing.
He found it satisfactory.
A Warrior-form emerged from the mass of lesser organisms, its bonesword crackling with the stolen psychic energy of a dozen consumed psykers. It was larger than its kin, its carapace thick with additional armor plating that spoke of numerous successful engagements. Its eyes—all six of them—fixed upon him with an intensity that suggested something approaching individual recognition, a rare trait in creatures designed for collective consciousness.
Perhaps it had fought Space Marines before. Perhaps it remembered.
He would ensure it did not survive to remember this encounter.
The Warrior lunged, its bonesword descending in an arc that would have cleaved a lesser opponent from shoulder to hip. He did not attempt to block—boneswords were nasty pieces of biological engineering that could phase through conventional defenses with unsettling ease. Instead, he stepped into the attack, inside the creature's guard, close enough that he could smell the ammonia-sharp stench of its breath and see the individual cells shifting beneath its semi-translucent chitin.
His forehead met its skull with approximately seventeen tons of force, accounting for his armored mass, forward momentum, and the servo-assisted boost of his suit's systems.
The Warrior's head did not so much break as liquefy.
He shook ichor from his helmet's visual sensors and continued forward, chainsword singing its endless song of mechanical death.
It was at this precise moment—knee-deep in Tyranid corpses, covered in enough biological matter to constitute a small ecosystem, surrounded by a swarm of creatures that had successfully consumed fourteen inhabited worlds in this sector alone—that the notification appeared.
[DIMENSIONAL CHAT SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
The words materialized in the upper left corner of his helmet's display, rendered in a cheerful blue font that seemed profoundly inappropriate for the circumstances.
He ignored it.
A Ravener burst from the ground beneath his feet, its serpentine body coiling with predatory intent. He caught it by the throat with his free hand, squeezed until carapace cracked and vital fluids spurted between his fingers, and threw the twitching corpse into an oncoming mass of Termagants with enough force to bowl seven of them over.
[CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected for the Multi-Dimensional Chat Program!]
He continued to ignore it.
The Hive Tyrant announced its presence with a psychic scream that would have reduced an unprotected human's brain to the consistency of overcooked grox-porridge. His psycho-indoctrination and the subtle protections woven into his armor's systems reduced the effect to a mild headache and an annoying ringing in his enhanced hearing.
He looked up.
The creature was massive, easily twice his height, its wings casting shadows across the corpse-strewn battlefield as it descended toward him with killing intent radiating from every fiber of its engineered being. This was a synapse creature of significant age and experience, its carapace marked with the bio-acid scars of countless battles. The weapons fused to its upper limbs were organic approximations of Imperial technology, boneswords and lash whips and strangler variants that spoke of genetic memory stretching back to the Hive Fleet's first contact with human defenders.
It was, by any reasonable tactical assessment, a serious threat.
He revved his chainsword.
[CHAT ROOM OPENING IN 3... 2... 1...]
The Hive Tyrant struck first, its bonesword shrieking through the air with enough force to cleave battle tank armor. He twisted, letting the blade pass within inches of his pauldron, and responded with a bolter burst aimed at the creature's lower thorax. The mass-reactive rounds detonated against chitin, blowing craters in the organic armor but failing to achieve significant penetration.
He had expected as much. Hive Tyrants did not survive to this age by being easy to kill.
The creature's lash whip snaked toward his ankles. He jumped, servo-motors launching him upward with force that would have shattered a normal human's spine, and brought his chainsword down in a two-handed overhead strike that carved a furrow through the Tyrant's shoulder carapace.
The beast screamed again, psychic and physical, and swung its secondary arms in a grasping motion designed to trap and crush. He kicked off its chest, using the impact to launch himself backward and out of range, firing his bolter one-handed as he flew through the air.
Three rounds found the join between the creature's neck and torso. Two detonated harmlessly against thick chitin. One found a gap in the armor and exploded inside the organic structure.
The Hive Tyrant staggered.
He landed, rolled, came up firing.
[WELCOME TO THE DIMENSIONAL CHAT SYSTEM!]
[CHAT ROOM: "Heroes and Other Weird People" INITIALIZED]
[CONNECTING TO OTHER DIMENSIONAL PARTICIPANTS...]
The Hive Tyrant regained its balance and charged, abandoning any pretense of tactical sophistication in favor of simple, overwhelming aggression. Its boneswords carved parallel furrows in the air, psychic energy crackling along their edges, promising death to anything they touched.
He met the charge head-on.
[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED]
[PARTICIPANTS JOINING...]
His chainsword caught one bonesword, the adamantine teeth shrieking against the psychically-reinforced bone. His free hand grabbed the haft of the second bonesword, ceramite gauntlets squealing in protest as the weapon tried to phase through his grip. He twisted, using the creature's own momentum against it, and drove his helmeted head into its face with pile-driver force.
Chitin cracked. Ocular fluid sprayed. The Tyrant reeled backward, temporarily blinded in half its eyes.
He did not give it time to recover.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE has joined the chat!]
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST has joined the chat!]
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE has joined the chat!]
[LAST_SON has joined the chat!]
His bolter found the creature's throat and emptied the remainder of its magazine into the relatively soft tissue beneath the jaw. Mass-reactive rounds detonated in rapid sequence, turning vital structures into a spray of biological debris. The Hive Tyrant made a sound that might have been surprise, might have been pain, and collapsed backward in a heap of twitching limbs and dying neural impulses.
The synapse connection to the lesser organisms shattered.
Around him, forty thousand Tyranids suddenly lost all coordination, their movements becoming jerky and animalistic as the guiding intelligence departed. Some turned on each other. Some froze in place. Some continued attacking, but without the tactical precision that had made them dangerous.
He ejected his spent magazine, retrieved a fresh one from his belt, and began the systematic process of slaughtering the remainder.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Hello! Is this thing working?
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: Whoa! This is weird! Hi everybody!
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Okay, I'm going to need someone to explain what the actual hell is happening here, because I'm showing some very strange readings and FRIDAY is having what I can only describe as a digital panic attack.
[LAST_SON]: Hello. This is... unusual, but I'm reading multiple dimensional signatures. Is everyone alright?
He put a bolt round through a Hormagaunt's skull and wondered if this was some elaborate form of Tzeentchian trickery. The Changer of Ways was known for its convoluted schemes, and a false communication system designed to distract him during combat would certainly fit the Chaos God's aesthetic.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Hey! There's supposed to be five of us, right? Where's the last person?
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]: Participant [DESIGNATION_CORRUPTED] is currently engaged in combat. Please stand by.
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: "Designation Corrupted"? That's not ominous at all. Also, combat? What kind of combat?
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]: Displaying visual feed from [DESIGNATION_CORRUPTED]'s location...
He was only vaguely aware of the chat system's activities as he continued his work. A Carnifex—one of the three that had been coordinating the siege—lumbered toward him through the mass of disorganized lesser creatures, its massive crushing claws raised and its bio-plasma weapon already glowing with impending discharge. Without synapse support, it was operating on pure instinct, but a Carnifex's instincts were still more than sufficient to flatten most opposition.
He holstered his bolter and drew his secondary weapon.
It was not a standard Astartes armament. He had acquired it three thousand years ago, from a Chaos Warsmith who had made the terminal error of attempting to corrupt him to the Ruinous Powers. The weapon was a power fist of exceptional craftsmanship, its disruption field generators far more powerful than standard Imperial variants. He had named it at some point, he was certain, but that name too had been lost to the erosion of millennia.
The Carnifex fired its bio-plasma.
He charged directly into the oncoming stream of superheated biological matter.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: Whoa! That thing is huge! And it just spit fire at him!
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Is he... is he running INTO the plasma stream? What kind of armor is that? FRIDAY, analyze that material composition!
[LAST_SON]: He's... his armor is taking the hit. I can see the thermal readings from here. That's incredibly hot, but he's pushing through it.
The bio-plasma washed over his armor in a torrent of green-white destruction. Warning runes flickered across his display—heat warnings, structural integrity alerts, system damage notifications. He noted them, categorized them as acceptable losses, and continued forward.
The plasma stream cut off as the Carnifex exhausted its biological ammunition reserve. It had approximately three seconds to register the fact that its target was still moving before he reached it.
His power fist struck its forward leg at the joint, the disruption field shearing through chitin and muscle and bone with contemptuous ease. The limb separated from the body in a spray of ichor. The Carnifex lurched, off-balance, and attempted to bring its crushing claws to bear.
He was already moving.
Second strike: the other forward leg, same location. The creature dropped onto its chest, suddenly reduced to dragging itself forward with its rear limbs.
Third strike: the connection point of its left crushing claw. The massive appendage fell away.
Fourth strike: the bio-plasma weapon itself, destroying the creature's primary offensive capability in a contained detonation of biological fuel.
Fifth strike: directly into the creature's skull, punching through chitin and brain matter and emerging from the other side in an explosion of neural tissue.
The Carnifex shuddered once, twice, and went still.
He withdrew his fist from its skull and turned to locate the remaining two Carnifexes.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: He just... he just killed that thing. That thing was the size of a house. And he just walked up to it and killed it with his fist.
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: That was awesome! His technique was perfect—did you see how he disabled its mobility first? And then took out its ranged attack? And then just punched straight through its head? That's so cool!
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: I'm looking at the energy readings from that gauntlet. That disruption field is operating on principles I've never seen before. It's not quite plasma, not quite directed energy... FRIDAY, tell me you're recording this.
[LAST_SON]: The armor he's wearing... I'm trying to scan it, but there are layers I can't see through. Some kind of psychic shielding, maybe? And the damage he took from that plasma attack—his armor is regenerating. Slowly, but it's definitely repairing itself.
He located the second Carnifex. It was three hundred meters to his left, still trying to process the loss of synapse control. The third was further back, near what had been the Tyranid rear lines before he had collapsed their formations.
He began walking toward the second creature.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]: Visual feed stable. Audio connection enabled.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Hey! Hey, can you hear us? The system says audio is working now!
He considered ignoring the voices. They were almost certainly Chaos-spawned illusions designed to distract him from his duty. But there was something about them—an earnestness, perhaps, a quality that seemed fundamentally incompatible with the nature of Chaos—that made him hesitate.
And he had learned, over ten millennia of war, that hesitation was usually a prelude to regret.
"I can hear you," he said. His voice emerged as a harsh rasp, filtered through his helmet's vox-grille and carrying undertones of static from damaged voice synthesizers. "Identify yourselves."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Finally! Hi! I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm going to be Hokage! Believe it!
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: I'm Goku! Nice to meet you! That was some really great fighting just now!
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Tony Stark. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Currently questioning the fundamental nature of reality because apparently interdimensional chat systems are a thing now.
[LAST_SON]: My name is Kal-El, though most people call me Superman. It's good to meet you. What's your name?
He paused in his advance toward the Carnifex.
What was his name?
He searched his memory, that vast archive of combat experience and theological certainty and endless, grinding war. He found strategies and tactics and the prayer of activation for seventeen different weapon systems. He found the proper form for requesting ammunition resupply and the words of devotion that accompanied the dawn maintenance ritual. He found the faces of enemies he had slain, billions of them, stacked in his recollection like pages in an infinite ledger.
He did not find his name.
"I do not remember," he said.
The chat was silent for a moment.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: You... don't remember your own name?
"Correct. The information was lost. It is not relevant to my function."
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: That's... okay, I have questions. A LOT of questions. But first—what exactly ARE you? Because the armor looks like nothing I've ever seen, the weapons are clearly advanced, and you just punched through a building-sized monster's skull like it was made of tissue paper.
"I am an Adeptus Astartes," he replied, continuing his approach toward the second Carnifex. The creature had finally oriented on him and was beginning to charge. "A Space Marine of the Imperium of Man. I serve the Emperor of Mankind in His eternal war against the enemies of humanity."
[LAST_SON]: The Emperor of Mankind? Is that the leader of your civilization?
"The Emperor is the Master of Mankind. The Lord of Terra. The Omnissiah in flesh. He is the guiding light that illuminates humanity's path through the darkness of the void. He sits upon the Golden Throne, sustained by the sacrifice of a thousand psykers each day, His will holding the Imperium together against the endless horrors that seek to destroy it."
The Carnifex reached him. Its crushing claws descended.
He sidestepped the first, caught the second with his power fist, and used the creature's own momentum to swing himself onto its back.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: He's riding it. He's actually riding the giant monster.
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: That's so cool! I want to try that!
His chainsword found the gap between the creature's armored skull plates and the softer tissue of its neck. He revved the weapon to maximum and began cutting.
"The creatures I am fighting," he continued, his voice unchanged despite the exertion of sawing through Tyranid biology, "are designated as Tyranids. An extragalactic species of xenos organisms that travel in vast hive fleets, consuming all biological matter in their path. They have devoured countless worlds. Possibly countless galaxies. Their hunger is infinite and their numbers are beyond meaningful calculation."
The Carnifex's head came free. He rode its collapsing body to the ground, stepped off, and began walking toward the third creature.
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Extragalactic. As in, from outside your galaxy. And they consume... everything?
"All biological matter. Every organism, every plant, every microbe. The very atmosphere of a consumed world is stripped away. Nothing remains. The Imperium has been fighting the Tyranid threat for approximately four thousand years. Thirteen major hive fleets have been catalogued, though others certainly exist beyond our observation. Conservative estimates suggest that the entirety of Tyranid biomass encountered thus far represents a small fraction of their total numbers."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Four thousand years? That's... that's a really long time. How long have YOU been fighting?
He calculated.
"Ten thousand, two hundred and forty-seven years. Approximately. There are gaps in the chronological record due to warp transit and temporal anomalies."
The chat was silent.
Then:
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: TEN THOUSAND YEARS?!
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: I'm sorry, did you just say ten THOUSAND years? As in, ten millennia? As in, longer than recorded human history on Earth?
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: Whoa. That's... that's a lot of fighting. Are you okay?
The question made him pause again.
Was he okay?
He examined the concept. "Okay" implied a state of wellness, of satisfactory function. By the standards of the Adeptus Astartes, he was functioning within acceptable parameters. His organs were intact. His armor was damaged but operational. His weapons were sufficient to the task at hand.
By any other standard—
But there was no other standard. There was duty. There was purpose. There was the eternal war. These things were sufficient.
"I am functional," he said.
[LAST_SON]: That's not what Goku asked. He asked if you were okay. If you were... alright. Not just physically, but—
"I understand the distinction," he interrupted. "The answer remains the same. I am functional. Personal wellbeing beyond combat readiness is not a relevant consideration."
He reached the third Carnifex. Unlike its brethren, this one had regained some semblance of tactical awareness in the absence of synapse control. It circled him warily, its bio-weapons tracking his movement, waiting for an opening.
He gave it one.
He deliberately dropped his guard, presenting his left flank as an inviting target. The Carnifex lunged, crushing claws reaching for what it perceived as an easy kill.
He spun inside the attack, brought his power fist up, and punched through the creature's chest cavity with enough force to rupture its primary heart. His arm, buried up to the elbow in Tyranid viscera, found the creature's secondary heart and crushed it.
The Carnifex died on its feet.
He withdrew his arm, shook ichor from his gauntlet, and surveyed the battlefield.
The remaining Tyranids were dying. Without synapse coordination and with their largest organisms eliminated, they were easy prey for his continued advance. He estimated another forty-seven minutes to complete extermination of the swarm.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: I... I don't understand. How can you just... how can you kill so many things and talk like nothing's happening? Don't you feel anything?
He considered the question as he reloaded his bolter.
"I do not understand the question."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: I mean... you're killing living things. Lots of them. Don't you feel bad? Or angry? Or... or anything?
"The Tyranids are xenos organisms. Enemies of humanity. Feeling emotional distress at their elimination would be counterproductive to my function. Additionally—" he paused, searching for the correct way to articulate the truth— "I do not believe I am capable of the emotional responses you are describing. Such responses were suppressed during my conditioning. What remained eroded over time. I have not experienced what you would recognize as 'feeling' in approximately eight thousand years."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Eight thousand... you haven't felt ANYTHING in eight thousand years?
"Correct."
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Okay, I'm going to need you to back up, because this is a lot to process. You're telling me that you've been fighting for ten thousand years, you've been conditioned to suppress emotions, and whatever emotional capacity you had left just... faded away? Over millennia?
"That is an accurate summary."
[LAST_SON]: And you don't remember your name. Or where you came from. Or who you were before this.
"Also correct. These memories were deemed non-essential and were either deliberately erased during conditioning or lost to the natural degradation of neural tissue over extended periods. The human brain, even one augmented to Astartes specifications, was not designed to retain information across such timeframes."
He resumed his systematic extermination of the remaining Tyranids. The chat fell silent as he worked, though he could see that the other participants were still connected, still watching.
Twenty-three minutes passed.
[LAST_SON]: The system says we can send you things. Items from our dimensions. Would that help? Could we send you something that might make your situation easier?
He considered the offer. In ten thousand years, he had learned to be wary of gifts. The Ruinous Powers offered gifts. The xenos offered gifts. Rogue Traders offered gifts. All of them came with costs, often measured in blood and souls.
But there was something about the voice—"Superman," he had called himself—that seemed fundamentally incapable of deception. A quality of earnestness that reminded him, distantly and faintly, of something he might have once called sincerity.
"What are you capable of sending?" he asked.
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: According to the system interface, pretty much anything that exists in our dimension. Technology, materials, information... it's saying I could even send energy or genetic modifications, which is DEEPLY concerning from a scientific standpoint.
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: I could send you some Senzu Beans! They heal any injury instantly! And they're really tasty!
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: I could send scrolls with jutsu techniques! Or maybe some ramen? Do you have ramen where you are?
He had no idea what ramen was. The concept seemed irrelevant.
"The healing items may be useful," he acknowledged. "My armor's apothecarion functions are limited. Standard medical supplies would be appreciated."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]: Gift transfer initiated!
[ITEM RECEIVED]: Senzu Bean (x5)
[ITEM DESCRIPTION]: A mystical bean from the Karin Tower. Consuming one will instantly restore the user to full health and energy, regardless of the severity of injuries.
Small green objects materialized in a container on his belt. He examined them through his armor's sensors, confirmed they were not immediately hazardous, and filed them away for later analysis.
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Okay, I'm sending some medical nanobots. They're programmed for repair work—they should be compatible with human biology, and if your augmentations are as extensive as they look, they might be able to integrate with your existing systems.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]: Gift transfer initiated!
[ITEM RECEIVED]: Stark Medical Nanobots (Package Alpha)
[ITEM DESCRIPTION]: Advanced nanoscale machines designed for medical intervention. Self-replicating within safe parameters. Includes diagnostic, repair, and enhancement functions.
More items appeared. He noted their arrival and continued his work.
The last of the Tyranids fell seven minutes later—a cluster of Termagants that had tried to flee into the ruins of the outer hab-blocks. He tracked them down methodically, eliminating each one with precision bolter fire that collapsed walls and shattered foundations.
When it was done, he stood in the center of a city that had become a graveyard.
Forty thousand Tyranid organisms. Dead.
Planetary defense forces. Dead.
Arbites. Dead.
Civilians who had been unable to evacuate. Dead.
Hive City Tertius-Nine, population approximately fourteen million before the attack.
Estimated survivors: two hundred thousand, sheltered in the deep underhive where the Tyranids had not yet penetrated.
He began walking toward the nearest vox-relay station. Imperial command would need to be informed that the threat had been neutralized. Reinforcements would need to be dispatched for reconstruction and population restoration.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Hey... that was amazing. The way you fight, the way you move... you're really strong. But I have to ask—is it always like this? Is every fight this... this brutal?
"Define 'brutal.'"
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: I mean... all the death. All the destruction. Do you ever fight battles where people don't die? Where you're protecting people instead of just killing enemies?
He considered the question.
"I am always protecting people," he said. "Every enemy I kill is one that cannot harm Imperial citizens. Every battle I win is territory defended, resources preserved, populations saved. This is the nature of war in the 41st millennium. We do not fight for abstract concepts of justice or peace. We fight because the alternative is extinction."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: But doesn't it get to you? All that death? All that fighting? In my world, we believe that even enemies can be saved. That there's good in everyone. That if you just reach out to them, understand them, you can change them—
"No."
The word came out flat, final.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: What?
"The enemies of mankind cannot be changed. Cannot be reasoned with. Cannot be saved. The Tyranids do not think—they consume. Chaos does not negotiate—it corrupts. The Orks do not make peace—they only understand war. For ten thousand years, I have fought every enemy the galaxy can produce. Not once has 'reaching out' been an effective strategy. Not once has 'understanding' prevented a battle. The only thing that stops the enemies of mankind is death. Mine or theirs."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: But... but that can't be right. There has to be another way. In my world, I saved people that everyone said were beyond saving. I changed people that everyone said couldn't change. If you just try—
"How old are you?"
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: What?
"How old are you. In years."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: I'm... I'm seventeen. But what does that—
"I have existed for over ten thousand years. I have fought on worlds whose names were forgotten before your planet formed. I have faced enemies whose malevolence predates your species. I have watched civilizations rise and fall, seen hope kindled and extinguished across a million battlefields. Do not presume to lecture me about 'another way.' There is no other way. There is only duty, and death, and the endless war that keeps humanity alive for one more day."
The chat fell silent.
When the next message came, it was from a different participant.
[LAST_SON]: I understand.
He stopped walking.
[LAST_SON]: I understand why you fight the way you do. I understand why you've had to do the things you've done. In my experience, there's always hope—but I also know that hope looks different in different places. On my world, I can afford to believe in redemption because my world allows for it. Your world doesn't give you that luxury.
"You do not condemn my actions?"
[LAST_SON]: How can I condemn you for doing what you had to do to survive? To protect others? I've seen the recordings from your dimension that the system provided as background. I've seen what you're fighting against. The scale of it is... it's almost beyond comprehension. And you've been doing this for ten thousand years. Alone.
"Not always alone. I had brothers once."
[LAST_SON]: But not anymore?
"They are dead. Or lost. Or fallen to corruption. After sufficient time, the distinction becomes academic."
[LAST_SON]: I'm sorry.
He did not know how to respond to that. Apologies were not a currency with which he was familiar. In the Imperium, one did not apologize for loss—one endured it and continued forward. The dead were mourned only insofar as their absence impacted operational effectiveness.
"Your sympathy is... noted," he said finally. "But unnecessary. I am functional."
[LAST_SON]: Being functional isn't the same as being alright. I know that better than most. But I also know that sometimes, just having people who understand—even a little—can make a difference.
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Okay, speaking of understanding—I've been looking at the data feeds from your dimension, and I have approximately eight hundred thousand questions, but I'm going to start with the most urgent one: WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOUR TECHNOLOGY?
He was not certain how to interpret the question.
"Clarify."
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: I'm looking at the schematics of your armor. At least, I'm trying to look at them, but half the systems don't make any sense. You've got plasma reactors that should be melting through the containment, but they're being held together by what I can only describe as prayer inscriptions. Your weapon systems are operating on principles that violate at least six laws of thermodynamics, but they work anyway because you're chanting the right words while you fire them. And your chainsword—I ran the numbers on the chain mechanism, and it should have torn itself apart after about thirty seconds of operation, except there's some kind of... reality-warping field embedded in the metal that keeps it together. WHAT IS ANY OF THIS?
"Machine spirits," he replied. "All technology of sufficient complexity contains a machine spirit. The spirit must be properly propitiated through ritual and prayer, or the technology will fail. This is a fundamental principle of mechanical operation."
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: MACHINE. SPIRITS. You're telling me that your advanced technology works because you PRAY at it?
"Correct. This is the teaching of the Omnissiah, the Machine God, whose flesh was the Emperor of Mankind. All technology is sacred. All machinery contains a fragment of divine essence. To operate a weapon is to commune with its spirit. To repair armor is to perform a holy rite. This is known."
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: I... I need to sit down. I'm already sitting down, but I need to sit down more. This is... this violates everything I understand about science.
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: I think it's kind of neat! On my world, we have Ki energy that powers special attacks. Maybe machine spirits are kind of like that?
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: Ki energy is at least theoretically compatible with physics! This is just... it's PRAYER! He's saying that sufficiently advanced technology runs on FAITH!
"The Warp responds to belief," the Marine said, resuming his walk toward the vox-station. "Strong emotion and collective faith can influence the immaterium, which in turn influences material reality. Machine spirits are a manifestation of this principle. Whether they are 'truly' spirits in a metaphysical sense or simply psychic imprints left by millennia of human interaction with technology is a question that the Adeptus Mechanicus has debated for ten thousand years. The practical answer is that prayer works, and therefore prayer is performed."
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: I'm going to need so much therapy after this conversation.
[LAST_SON]: Tony, I think we all are.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: I... I still don't understand. About the fighting, I mean. You say you've been doing this for ten thousand years. You say you can't feel emotions anymore. You say everyone you ever cared about is dead. How do you... how do you keep going? What's the point?
He reached the vox-station. The building had been damaged in the fighting but remained structurally sound. He entered through a shattered doorway and began the process of activating the long-range communication systems.
"The point," he said, as his fingers moved through the activation rituals, "is that humanity survives. Every day that I continue fighting is a day that human civilization continues to exist. Every enemy I kill is one that cannot threaten human lives. This is sufficient purpose. This is the only purpose that matters."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: But what about YOU? What about your life? Your happiness? Your dreams?
"I do not have dreams. I do not experience happiness. I barely possess what you would recognize as 'a life.' I am a weapon in human form, created by the Emperor to defend His species against the darkness. This is what I am. This is all I am. And this is enough."
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: That's... that's the saddest thing I've ever heard.
"It is not sad. It simply is. Sadness requires the capacity for emotional response. I have explained that I lack this capacity. Your projection of emotional content onto my existence is understandable but inaccurate."
The vox-system hummed to life. He began transmitting the standard after-action report, his voice flat and precise as he detailed the engagement, the enemy strength, the casualties, the current status of the planetary population.
While he transmitted, another conversation happened in the chat.
[LAST_SON]: Naruto, I don't think he can hear what you're trying to say. Not because he won't listen, but because he genuinely can't. Whatever was done to him, whatever he's been through, it's taken away his ability to process things the way we do.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: But that's not fair! Everyone should be able to feel! To have dreams! To have bonds with other people!
[LAST_SON]: You're right. It's not fair. But 'not fair' is the foundation of his entire existence. His universe isn't fair. It's a place where the default state is horror, and the best anyone can hope for is survival. He's not broken—he's adapted. And I think, in a strange way, he's at peace with what he is.
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: That's... incredibly depressing.
[LAST_SON]: It is. But it's also true. And I think the best thing we can do isn't try to fix him or change him—it's just be there. Let him know that there are people in the multiverse who understand, even if we can't fully comprehend what he's been through.
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: He's really strong, though. Like, REALLY strong. Not just physically—the way he keeps fighting, keeps going, even after everything... that takes a special kind of strength.
[LAST_SON]: It does. And I think that's something we can all learn from, even if the circumstances are horrifying.
The Marine finished his transmission and deactivated the vox-system. He would remain on the planet until reinforcements arrived—standard protocol for post-engagement security operations. There might be Tyranid organisms that had escaped the initial purge, burrowed deep underground or hidden in the ruins. He would find them and eliminate them.
This was his purpose.
This was his existence.
This was enough.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]: Session ending in 10 minutes. Further chat sessions will occur at regular intervals. Participants are encouraged to develop relationships and share resources across dimensional boundaries.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: Wait, we're getting cut off? But I have so many more questions!
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: The system's probably got some kind of energy limitation. These interdimensional connections don't maintain themselves.
[LAST_SON]: Before we go—I want you to know something. Even if you can't feel it, even if it doesn't mean anything to you... you're not alone anymore. This chat system connected us for a reason. And whatever that reason is, we're here now. All of us.
[KAKAROT_STRONGEST]: Yeah! And next time, I want to hear more about your training! How did you get so strong?
[GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]: And I want to understand more about your technology. The science is insane, but there might be principles we can actually use. If machine spirits are real, if faith can affect physical reality... the implications are staggering.
[ORANGE_HOKAGE]: And I... I want to understand more about you. About how you think. About why you do what you do. Even if I don't agree with it. Even if it scares me. Because I think... I think you deserve to have someone who cares about what happens to you.
He stood in the ruins of the vox-station, surrounded by the silence of a battlefield, and considered their words.
Caring.
Connection.
Understanding.
These were concepts that had once meant something to him, he was certain. There had been a time—a time before the conditioning, before the millennia, before the endless war—when such things had been important. He could not remember that time. He could not access those feelings. They were gone, eroded away like ancient script on a weathered stone.
And yet.
There was something in their words. Something that touched a part of him that he had believed to be entirely dead. Not an emotion—he was no longer capable of those. But an... acknowledgment. A recognition that what they offered had value, even if he could not fully appreciate it.
"Your concern is noted," he said finally. "I will... consider your words."
It was, perhaps, the most he had said to anyone about anything personal in several thousand years.
[LAST_SON]: That's all we ask. Take care of yourself, soldier. We'll talk again soon.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]: Chat session ended. Next session scheduled in 24 hours (local time).
The chat interface faded from his helmet display.
He was alone again.
This was familiar. This was comfortable. This was the way things had been for millennia.
But something had changed. Something small and impossible to define. A connection had been made, across the incomprehensible vastness of dimensional space, between himself and beings from other realities. They knew of his existence. They had witnessed his war. They had offered gifts and sympathy and something that might, in other circumstances, be called friendship.
He did not know what to do with this information.
So he did what he always did when faced with uncertainty.
He turned, walked out of the ruined building, and began the systematic process of securing the area against any surviving Tyranid organisms.
There was still work to be done.
There was always work to be done.
And tomorrow, perhaps, he would speak with them again.
[SYSTEM LOG - PRIVATE]
[PARTICIPANT: ORANGE_HOKAGE]
Naruto stared at the fading chat interface, his hands trembling slightly.
He had faced enemies before. Powerful enemies. Enemies that had killed people he loved, threatened everything he cared about. But he had always believed—ALWAYS believed—that there was good in people. That anyone could be saved. That bonds and understanding and the power of connection could overcome any darkness.
And then he had watched a man—if that's what you could still call him—slaughter forty thousand creatures without hesitation, without emotion, without even seeming to notice the horror of what he was doing. He had heard that voice, flat and mechanical, explain ten thousand years of endless war like it was a routine after-action report. He had seen the recordings the system provided, glimpses of a universe so dark and terrible that his own world's conflicts seemed like children's games.
And he had tried—he had TRIED—to reach that man. To make him understand that there was another way, that even in the darkness there was hope.
And the man had looked at his hope, and his idealism, and his seventeen years of experience, and had dismissed them utterly.
Not cruelly. Not with malice.
Just with the weight of ten thousand years of evidence to the contrary.
Naruto sat down heavily on his bed, staring at the ceiling of his apartment, and for the first time in his life, wondered if maybe—just maybe—believing in everyone wasn't always enough.
[SYSTEM LOG - PRIVATE]
[PARTICIPANT: GENIUS_BILLIONAIRE]
Tony Stark poured himself a drink, downed it, and poured another.
FRIDAY was still processing the data from the interdimensional connection. The holographic displays around his workshop were filled with schematics and energy readings and materials analysis, none of which made any goddamn sense.
He had built suits that could go toe-to-toe with gods. He had developed technology that pushed the boundaries of what was physically possible. He had looked into the face of cosmic entities and come up with solutions that worked.
But this—this was something else entirely.
Technology that ran on faith. Weapons that worked because you prayed to them correctly. Armor that healed itself through the application of sacred oils and ritual chanting.
It was madness. It was impossible.
And yet, according to every reading he had taken, it WORKED.
Worse than the technology was the man inside the armor. Tony had seen soldiers before. He had seen people broken by war, shaped by trauma, hardened by experience until they barely seemed human anymore.
He had never seen someone who had been doing it for TEN THOUSAND YEARS.
How do you even process that? How do you comprehend a being that had been fighting since before the Roman Empire, before Christ, before the first Egyptian pyramids? A being that had killed more enemies than the total population of Earth? A being that had watched everyone he ever knew die, one by one, century after century, until he couldn't even remember their names?
Tony looked at his drink, set it down, and began typing.
He was going to figure out that technology. He was going to understand how faith could affect physical reality. And maybe, just maybe, he was going to find a way to help that poor, broken, ancient soldier.
It was probably impossible.
But Tony Stark had built a career on doing the impossible.
[SYSTEM LOG - PRIVATE]
[PARTICIPANT: KAKAROT_STRONGEST]
Goku grinned as the chat window closed, but it was a more thoughtful grin than usual.
The guy in the armor was STRONG. Really strong. Goku had watched him fight, had analyzed his movements with the trained eye of a lifelong martial artist, and had been genuinely impressed. The efficiency, the precision, the complete lack of wasted motion—this was someone who had refined their combat style over countless battles until it was as close to perfect as humanly possible.
Goku wanted to fight him.
That was always his first instinct when he met someone powerful. Fighting was how he connected with people, how he understood them, how he grew stronger himself. A good fight could teach you more about someone than hours of conversation.
But there was something else, too. Something that nagged at the back of his mind.
The man in the armor didn't seem to enjoy fighting. For Goku, combat was joy—the thrill of testing himself, of pushing beyond his limits, of connecting with a worthy opponent. But for the armored warrior, fighting was just... work. A task to be performed. An endless duty with no pleasure attached.
Goku couldn't imagine that. Fighting without joy? Battle without excitement?
It seemed like such a sad way to exist.
But still... Goku wanted to fight him. And maybe, through fighting, he could show the warrior that there was more to combat than just duty. That there could be joy in the clash of strength against strength, the thrill of meeting an equal, the satisfaction of giving everything you had.
Maybe that would help.
It was worth a try, anyway.
[SYSTEM LOG - PRIVATE]
[PARTICIPANT: LAST_SON]
Clark Kent sat in the Fortress of Solitude, staring at the crystal display that recorded everything from the chat session.
He had seen a lot in his time as Superman. He had fought cosmic entities and interdimensional conquerors. He had witnessed civilizations rise and fall. He had been to the edge of the universe and back.
But he had never encountered anything quite like this.
The man in the armor—the Space Marine—represented something that cut to the heart of everything Clark believed in. Here was a being who had dedicated his entire existence to protecting others. Who had fought, endlessly and selflessly, for ten thousand years. Who had sacrificed everything—his memories, his emotions, his very humanity—in service to a cause greater than himself.
And yet, the universe he defended was one of unrelenting horror. A place where there was no hope, no redemption, no possibility of a better tomorrow. Where the best anyone could hope for was survival for one more day, one more battle, one more desperate holding action against the tide of darkness.
Clark believed in hope. He believed that even in the darkest times, there was always a light to be found. He believed that beings were fundamentally good, that understanding and compassion could overcome hatred and fear.
But what did you do when hope itself was a luxury that couldn't be afforded? When showing mercy meant dooming billions? When every moment of hesitation cost lives?
The Space Marine wasn't evil. Clark could see that clearly. He was exactly what his terrible universe had made him—a weapon, a guardian, a sacrifice on the altar of human survival. He had done terrible things, but he had done them because there was no other option.
How could you condemn someone for that?
You couldn't.
All you could do was be there. Offer understanding. Provide what little comfort was possible.
And maybe, just maybe, try to be a light in the darkness—even across dimensional boundaries.
Clark turned away from the display and looked out at the arctic landscape.
Tomorrow, he would talk to the Space Marine again. And he would do what he always did.
He would try to help.
CHAPTER END
[AUTHOR'S NOTE]: This is the first chapter of what will hopefully be a longer work. The Marine will continue to traumatize various heroes from other dimensions while they gradually come to terms with the sheer grimdark nature of the Warhammer 40K universe. Superman will remain a good boy. Tony will continue to have existential crises about faith-based technology. Naruto will struggle with the limits of his Talk no Jutsu. And Goku will eventually get his fight.
But first, there are more chat sessions to come.
And the Marine has a galaxy to defend.
The Emperor protects.