u/MangaCentian

New Space King Mini Episode

No mic or commentary, just pure gameplay, little over 90 mins in total

Personal Log — Chapter Champion Azrael

Lamenters Chapter

Status: Returned to the Chapter

I have worn many titles.

Aspirant.

Neophyte.

Battle-Brother.

Veteran.

Sergeant.

Company Champion.

Captain.

Master of the Watch.

And now...

Chapter Champion once more.

The armour feels different.

Not because it weighs more. Not because the scars upon it have multiplied. Not because the yellow plate bears another lifetime of blood, ash, and sorrow.

It feels different because I have returned to something I once believed I had left behind forever.

When I first carried the mantle of Champion, I was a warrior eager to prove himself worthy of the Chapter. I believed strength was measured by the number of enemies one could kill and the battles one could survive.

I was wrong.

Command taught me otherwise.

As Captain of the 2nd Company, I learned that a commander does not simply carry a weapon.

He carries people.

Every Battle-Brother under my command became a name I was responsible for remembering. Every casualty became a weight upon my soul. Every order became a decision that could send a brother to his death.

I watched warriors, warriors I loved march into battles, they would never leave.

I watched brothers fall beneath the claws of xenos, beneath the blades of traitors, beneath the unrelenting guns of enemies who would never understand what it meant to fight while already expecting to lose.

And still...

We fought.

We always fight.

That is the curse of the Lamenters.

Perhaps it is also our greatest strength.

We know sorrow.

We know failure.

We know what it means to stand upon a battlefield surrounded by the dead and realise that tomorrow there will be fewer brothers standing beside you.

Yet we rise.

Again.

And again.

And again.

My time as Captain changed me.

I became less concerned with glory and more concerned with survival. Less concerned with being remembered and more concerned with ensuring others were.

I became a shield before I became a sword.

Now, as Chapter Champion, once more, I carry those lessons with me.

My role is no longer to command a company.

My role is to stand where the Chapter’s honour demands a warrior stand.

At the front.

Beside the wounded.

Before the enemy.

Between death and those who can not afford to meet it yet.

I have returned to the place where my path first began.

But I am not the same warrior who once wore this title.

The years have carved their lessons into me.

Every scar is a name.

Every mark upon my armour is a memory.

Every brother I lost is another reason to raise my blade.

They say the Lamenters are cursed.

Perhaps they are right.

But if fate believes our sorrow will make us kneel, then fate has yet to understand us.

We are the sons of Sanguinius.

We bleed.

We mourn.

We endure.

And when the final enemy comes for us, we will meet him standing.

I have been a Captain.

I have commanded warriors.

I have watched companies march beneath my banner.

Now, I return to the battlefield as something simpler.

Something older.

Something I understand.

I am Azrael.

Chapter Champion of the Lamenters.

I do not seek glory.

I do not seek remembrance.

I do not fear death.

I have already buried too many brothers to fear joining them.

But while I draw breath...

While my blade remains in my hand...

While there remains even one Lamenter willing to stand beside me...

I will fight.

For those we lost.

For those who remain.

For those who cannot fight for themselves.

And for the honour of the Chapter that has taken everything from me...

and still given me a reason to rise.

The Captain has returned to the ranks.

The Champion has returned to the blade.

And the sorrow remains.

— Azrael

Chapter Champion

Lamenters

Personal Log of Captain Azrael

Captain, 2nd Company, Lamenters Chapter

Classification: Private – Eyes Only

The casualty report lies before me.

I have read it seven times.

The numbers do not change.

Ninety-six battle-brothers deployed.

Forty-eight returned.

Half a company.

Half.

The tacticians of other Chapters would call the operation a victory. The objective was secured. The enemy was broken. Strategic assets were recovered and the sector remains in Imperial hands.

Victory.

I find the word difficult to stomach.

Tonight, forty-eight places within the strike cruiser stand empty.

Forty-eight voices silenced.

Forty-eight warriors who will never again recite the Litany of Duty, never again stand watch beneath the stars, never again fight beside their brothers.

I knew every one of them.

Brother Malthus, who could recite the names of every fallen hero of our Chapter.

Brother Tiber, whose aim with a bolter bordered upon the miraculous.

Sergeant Corvin, who had survived three centuries of war only to fall within sight of the extraction zone.

Their names join an already endless list.

The curse of the Lamenters endures.

We survive.

But survival is not the same as victory.

As I walked the apothecarion, I saw rows of wounded brothers lying silent beneath flickering lumen lights. Some will recover. Some will be interred within the honoured sarcophagi of the Dreadnoughts.

Others will not see another dawn.

Still they ask only one question:

"Did we hold?"

Not whether they lived.

Not whether they suffered.

Only whether they fulfilled their duty.

And we did.

The line held.

The enemy broke upon us and failed.

The Imperium will never know their names. No grand monument will be raised in their honour. Their sacrifice will become a footnote buried within a forgotten campaign report.

But I will remember.

I must remember.

Because if we forget the fallen, then all that remains is death.

The halls of the company feel larger tonight. Quieter. The silence follows me wherever I walk.

I can almost imagine hearing familiar voices around the next corner.

Old habits of warriors who spent centuries fighting together.

Yet when I turn, there is only emptiness.

Tomorrow I will stand before the survivors and speak of honour, courage, and sacrifice.

I will tell them their brothers died as heroes.

I will tell them their losses were not in vain.

I will speak as a captain should.

Tonight, however, I allow myself a single moment of truth.

I miss them.

Every one of them.

And I would gladly bear their wounds if it meant they still stood beside me.

But such bargains are not granted to men, not even to Space Marines.

So I carry their memory instead.

Half a company remains.

Half a company is gone.

And still we march.

For that is the burden of the Lamenters.

For those we cherish, we die in glory.

— Captain Azrael

2nd Company, Lamenters Chapter

"The Emperor demands duty. The fallen demand remembrance. I shall deny neither."

Probably the best Warhammer 40k channel on YouTube.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl6BRvEJ-auZ5aYPHj1B3pKJ\_pLjg9qNU&si=rLmsuXT\_-AfENwnQ

Thank you, Luetin09. I hope to play a game of SM2 with you one day!