40K x AOT: Warden of Sorrows

In a world of constant war and treachery, one man stood at the penical of humanity! He stood tall atop a cliff, his golden embroidered power armor humming with energy as he looked over at the world below him.

His legions, his children, his soldiers...his tools. The perfect weapons to achieve his cosmic desire. As the wind howled in his glory, The Emperor's voice was heard heard from thousands of miles and his orders fell on the ears of his Astartes soldier.

"My Legions! For This Crusade Shall Be One Etched In History As Our Greatest Battle Yet! Today You May Die! Today You May Fall To Chaos! Today You May Have To Slay Your Brothers! However, Today You WILL Fight For Glory! Today You WILL Fight For Honor and Valor! Today You WILL Serve The Imperium With Your Hearts and Souls! For My Astartes Will Ravage The Battlefield and Smite The Foe With EXTREME Prejudice! FOR MY ASTRTES-"

"HAVE NO FEAR!!"

"FOR THE EMPIRRRRRREE!!"

...

Snapping from his dazed state, Cloudius looked around him, the polish ointment nearly dropped from his hand and he remembered what he was doing.

"What was that vision?" He muttered, his eyebrows furrowing in thought. He knew it wasn't something he was around for, he was never in a battle of such magnitude. Every Chapter, every squad, even the Primarches were gathered. It was as if...

"As if he was leading a full scale assault on the Chaos Gods Themselves..." His voice trailed off wit his thoughts.

Could it be premonition of the future or failed attempts of the past?

Was it his own delusion or was that a message of sorts...a sign?

What could it be? What could it ACUALLY be!?

Cloudius finished the last touches on his armor and put the ointment away. He got up from the stool he sat on and sighed.

"He notices my actions, but that vision coming to pass is impossible. The Emperor rests on the throne being sustained by 10,000 souls every waking day. His form crumbles before us, but his might and prestige remains. Could it actually happen? Could the Emperor actually be awakening?" He felt a sliver of hope for the impossible forming within him.

"Even so, the Emperor still resides in my being! Even if he doesn't make a grand awakening, I will strive to see his vision materialized!" He pushed his fist to his chest and mowed it.

After some time, he left from the undergroundbunker on his land and made his way over to the recruiting area. Large amounts of men and women, young and older were lined up outside of a building, with 4 different soldiers stationed at tables. Taking notice of Cloudius, they saluted him as he walked past, nodding at everyone and entering the building behind them.

The inside looked like an arena of sorts, brimming with lively chatter from everyone that had their names taken outside. There were tables of both bread and different juices, way more than they claimed to have when the refugees from wall Maria came into Rose. He ignored the eyes on him as he walked over to the stage at the back of the room and went behind the curtains.

"So you showed up?" Levi asked with a flat tone as he sat in a chair with a book cracked open, although he immediately put it away once he noticed Cloudiu.

"How could I miss such an event? The youth here reminds me much of the Neophytes of my time. They have hope and, for now, resolve. However, we'll see how far that goes." Cloudius remarked with a slight grin.

"So, have you thought of the training regiment for your team? I can't imagine it being anything ordinary."

"Well if you do the say regime how could one expect different results? I can assure you my team will be a vast improvement from what this kingdom has been working with." Cloudius poked.

"Just remember they aren't some weird bio weapon like you. If the treatment of those soldiers isn't at the rightful level, then I'll shut your team down myself." Levi proclaimed.

Cloudius silently looked at him with a steeled expression. "You're just mad I won't spill the info on my training course." He laughed with a joyous expression.

"Tch, we can all benefit from shard information you know!?" Levi replied wit a thuggish expression and trembling fists.

"Haaa, rather than that, what if I told you some truthes of the world?" Cloudius shifted the topic to a much more serious one and the two men went silent for a bit, each trying to get a read on what the other was thinking. Levi didn't know if he was serious or if he was simply talking about space again. Cloudius was looking for any signs of interest, but Levi had such a poker face not even AI could discern his true thoughts.

"Eldia has many secrets, care to learn a few?"

"What's your angle with this?"

"Just inform you of the true nature of this kingdom. The lies royalty spew while the truth lives right. Inside. These walls."

Again there was silence. A brief silence that was broken by Hange Zoe doing a sound check on the microphone and speakers.

Levi walked towards the curtains that veiled the two and paused. "Meet with me at 5. We can talk while we scout the area." And there it was, the sliver of interest that would soon shape itself into a guard of curiosity!

"Right. Just come alone though, I wouldn't want this information leaking out to the common people." With a nod, Levi moved through the curtains and began to go over the place checking to see if it had been cleaned as good as he ordered.

Spoilers. It wasn't.

....

After a few hours, the recruitment event had officially ended. According to records, the amount of recruiters that signed up broke the last year's record by a landslide. However, those were just the amount that signed up. Later within the week there was another event that was actually a test to measure where everyone who wanted entry stood on both physical capabilities and how sharp their wit was.

Although, this ultimately didn't determine if you could join the trainees or not. It was actually just to have a record on those that signed up in case they don't graduate from being a trainee and wanted to try to enlist again the next year. Not only that, the amount of people that wanted to enlist was great for the Kingdom. In both good and bad ways.

If many did graduate to become active soldiers then the Royal Government thought the population would surely be decreased by a great margin as most of the recruiters that were at the event were male. On the other hand, their combative force against the titans would be greatly increased! They saw it as a win win situation.

This was something Cloudius picked up early on just from getting informed on the situation of the kingdom's inventory and manpower, while also reading up on the constant propaganda they spat to the people. However, there was one group of people he agreed with. They called themselves the Church of The Walls. Always preaching about the walls being a gift from God to protect them from Titans.

Cloudius would usually tease the group always talking about how he was going to make a motion to the King to build cannons that could come in and out of the walls on all sides. Of course, since they thought the walls to be sacred, hearing Cloudius joyfully talk about defiling them would usually send them into a religious rage.

However, they courted darth many times as well, blaspheming against the Emperor. Cloudius knew how lost they were so he held back his just judgment and declared the Emperor was the God that protected them from he true extent of chaos. Not some walls that went against their whole belief just by existing in the fashion they did. He told them many times that the walls were home to countless titans and they usually waved him off.

Although, one exchange with a high priest stuck with him.

Anyway, after the event was over he killed some time with payer and training, before leaving to meet up with Lei at the gate to the land beyond the walls.

.....

"I only plan to be out for a few hours or so. Let's make this quick." Levi said, keeping his eyes on the horizon.

"I'll try to sum it up as best I can. You take the lead."

Levi nodded and the two went on their way. For the first few moments there was silence. Notitans were around and they hadn't spoken a word. Their eyes simply watched the endless land before them.

"It's quite vast. The land." Cloudius mentioned.

"Very."

"It's so vast, I thought I was on a planet void of water, but that would be idiotic when the land is filled with so much agriculture. Strong trees, vast fields of lushous flowers and such healthy looking grass one would think it was being maintained by someone."

"It does seem endless at times."

"Then perhaps you'd find it funny that this land ends only a few thousand kilometers east. There's an even greater sea and just beyond that?" He glanced towards Levi.

"...More land." He answered.

"Precisely. Let me ask you again, Captain Levi. Just how much do you actually know about this world? Did you know this place is nothing, but an island on a globe of oceans ans massive continents? Did you know there's a high possiblity of life beyond this island? Life that could be far more advanced thanks to their leaders not putting a restriction on tech advancement? Did you know that for some reason, some very odd unexplainable reason, titans live within the walls of Eldia?"

"..."

"Take it all in Captain, this is the lie you've been living in all this ti-"

"Show me proof." His tone was deathly serious and in his sharpened eyes, there was a hint of pain on his disturbed expression.

"Levi, I wouldn't have even said all of this if I could show you my proof. However, take this into consideratin. The technology of my power armor is so far advanced that I can't even take the data chip and put it into a computer to show you the sheer amount of truthes i've uncovered in that guilded kingdom of lies. Oh, wait, you don't even know what a computer is, do you?"

Checkmate. Cloudius has officially planted the seed of doubt within "Humanities Strongest Warrior".

...

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.

Did it leave you guessing about later events? Hopefully it has because it gets pretty crazy later on!

Thanks for reading and see you guys next time for another chapter of AOT x 40ka: Warden of Sorrows