Warhammer 40K: ‘Space Marine II’s Demetrian Titus – the Ultramarines’ Lost Son Returns
Learn of Space Marine Demetrian Titus. Now a Primaris Lieutenant in the Ultramarines Chapter’s 2nd Company. Once lost, and now returned to the Chapter, full of righteous fury.
Demetrian Titus’ Early History
He was born on the Ultramar Agri World Tarentus, some eighty years before the Battle of Macragge, and was the only child of a humble family of modest means. Titus was later selected as an Aspirant by the selectors of the Ultramarines’ 10th Company and excelled at every trial set before him. After becoming a Space Marine, Titus struggled with his temper during his youth, but became a decorated warrior. However in a campaign against the forces of Chaos he was badly injured slaying a Chaos Sorcerer who wiped out the rest of his squad. The aftermath of that action led some to question how Titus had survived where the rest of his Battle Brothers had fallen. More than once since that occurred, Titus was forced to defend his reputation within his Chapter. He overcame these doubts, though, due to his reputation for decisive action and for being a warrior of incredible skill, who always emerged victorious throughout countless battles, despite facing seemingly impossible odds.
A little more than fifty years later, he joined the Ultramarines’ 2nd Company. It was led by Captain Severus Agemman when the First Tyrannic War began, but the Company was fighting elsewhere when the Ultramarines’ Homeworld, Macragge, was invaded by Hive Fleet Behemoth. Though the 2nd raced to aid their Chapter, they arrived after victory had been achieved at Macragge and the Company instead joined the Imperial reinforcements that aided in scouring Ultramar’s worlds of the Hive Fleet’s presence. As this occurred, the Ultramarines began to rebuild their devastated Chapter and Agemman was made the Captain of the 1st Company. The 2nd’s First Sergeant, Lucian Trajan, would replace Agemman and Titus became the Sergeant of his new Captain’s Command Squad. Trajan then had Titus lead multiple Kill Team Units as Ultramar was purged of Hive Fleet Behemoth. This allowed Titus to develop his distinctive trait of studying Xenos’ tactics and strategies by fighting them in close-quarters combat. The Sergeant and Trajan would also flourish under the tutelage they received from First Captain Agemman.
Titus Rises to Captain
A century after Trajan had taken command of the 2nd, the Company went to the aid of the besieged Imperial world Beta-Arcturus. It had been invaded by the Asuryani forces of the Craftworld Biel-Tan and once the 2nd’s often used Strike Cruiser Righteous Fury arrived, Trajan led the Company against the Xenos. In the battle that followed, the Righteous Fury fought Biel-Tan warships as the 2nd’s Captain attacked the position of the Xenos’ Autarch leader with half of his Company. Trajan then killed the Autarch in single combat, as Titus and his Command Squad kept the Xenos leader’s Aspect Warrior bodyguards, which caused Biel-Tan’s surviving forces to flee. As they did so, however, the Xenos captured the Ultramarine Leandros and Trajan gave command of the Company to Titus, as he led a combat squad to free the young warrior. This was merely a trap set up by Biel-Tan, though, who ambushed and mercilessly killed Trajan. After learning of this, Titus was able to lead the 2nd in an attack that finally drove off the Xenos and Leandros and Trajan’s body were recovered.
Upon the 2nd’s return to Macragge, the Ultramarines’ Chapter Master, Marneus Calgar, decided to make Titus the Company’s new Captain. While some of his Battle Brothers had thought that it was a rank he was suited for, Titus had never sought to rise to such heights. He had been content with his position as Sergeant and had only wished to serve Trajan and the Emperor in whatever way was asked of him. Upon being promoted though, Titus accepted the 2nd Company’s Captain, but he felt the weight of taking over his predecessor’s mantle. Titus would lead the 2nd to numerous victories afterwards, often using the Righteous Fury, and many senior Ultramarines, including both Chapter Master Calgar and First Captain Severus Agemman, regarding him as an exemplary warrior and strategist, who was the model of the humility expected of their Chapter.
Ork & Chaos Invasion of Graia
Titus had served the Ultramarines for one hundred and fifty years and had led the 2nd Company for ten, when he was sent to defend Graia from the Ork Waaagh! of Warboss Grimskull. The 203rd Cadian Regiment as well, but it suffered heavy losses and its remnants came under the command of 2nd Lieutenant Mira, who was its last surviving officer. During the battle, Titus mainly fought beside Brother Leandros and his close friend and confident Veteran Sergeant Sidonus, who each served in the Captain’s Command Squad. As they fought against Grimskull’s Waaagh!, Titus personally led the two on a mission to secure one of Graia’s Imperial Titan manufactorums, as well as in assisting 2nd Lt. Mira against the Orks. The three Ultramarines were later diverted by a message from Inquisitor Drogan, who asked for their assistance in retrieving the power source of an experimental Warp-powered weapon, the Psychic Scourge. The Captain agreed to do so, but after they fought their way through the Orks to reach it, Titus was directly exposed to the power source’s Warp energy. To everyone’s surprise he survived the encounter, though this quickly raised suspicions within Drogan and Leandros. Then upon traveling to Drogan’s laboratory to use the Scourge, the Ultramarines were betrayed by Drogan, who used the weapon to open a Warp Rift on Graia. In truth, the Inquisitor had been possessed by a Daemon all along and from the Warp Rift emerged its master, the Chaos Lord Nemeroth, and his Chosen of Nemeroth Warband.
This began the Chaos invasion of Graia and Titus, Sidonus and Leandros fought their way to a nearby Imperial Titan hangar, with the Captain slaying Warboss Grimskull while en route. After arriving in the hanger, Titus commandeered the Warlord Titan Invictus and equipped it with the Psychic Scourge’s power source in an effort to close the Warp Rift. He then had the Titan’s Princep, Enoch, fire upon the Warp Rift, but their efforts failed, as the Warp Rift only became contained. Titus then entrusted the power source to Sidonus to evacuate it to the 2nd Company’s Strike Cruiser, the Fury of Descent for safekeeping, while the Captain and Leandros kept Nemeroth’s attacking forces at bay. Sidonus raced towards a landing pad to wait for an aircraft to evacuate him, but the Veteran Sergeant was ambushed and killed by Nemeroth before he could do so. The Chaos Lord then escaped with the power source, as he intended to use it to become a Daemon Prince. Titus sought to stop this and left Sidonus’ body with Leandros and 2nd Lieutenant Mira, as he went to pursue Nemeroth. Titus then interrupted the Chaos Lord’s ascension on the top of Graia’s orbital spire, before it concluded, by tackling Nemeroth off the spire mid-transformation. The Captain was able to kill the Chaos Lord during their fall and then shattered the Psychic Scourge’s power source. The resulting explosion of Warp energy finally closed the Warp Rift, but once again Titus was left unscathed by its corrupting touch. His resistance to the Warp, though, had caused Leandros to report Titus to the Inquisition for potential heresy. This led the Captain to be confronted by the Ordo MalleusInquisitor Gerome Thrax and Titus allowed himself to be taken into custody, in order to spare the 2nd Company and the 203rd Cadian Regiment from the Inquisition’s wrath, as they were affiliated with a potential heretic. However he would give a few disparaging words to Leandros, before departing from Graia with Thrax.
Titus’s Imprisonment by the Inquisition
Once the Ultramarines became aware of what had occurred to Titus, Chapter Master Calgar made repeated requests to the Inquisition for the Captain’s return. These were to no avail, however, as Calgar would never receive any replays regarding Titus or Inquisitor Gerome Thrax. With his absence though, the 2nd Company was left without a Captain and it was decided that Cato Sicarius would succeed Titus as its new commander. The Ultramarines later erected a statue of Titus in their Fortress Monastery‘s Hall of Heroes. The missing Captain was also honored by Malum Caedo, an Ultramarine who went on his own mission to Graia in order to investigate the fate of a fragment of the Psychic Scourge’s power source.
In truth, Titus spent the next century being repeatedly psychically scourged and subjected to brutal mindtrawls by Inquisitor Thrax. As a student of the Imperium’s history, the Ordo Malleus Inquisitor had long viewed the Space Marines as being a significant threat to Humanity’s existence just as heresy and the Warp were. This is what led the Inquisitor to keep Titus imprisoned within his remote Inquisitorial watch station, no matter how many his tests and interrogations proved the Ultramarine was not corrupted. Titus bore these stoically and was kept in a Stasis cell, between his bouts of testing, alongside several other Space Marines that Thrax had imprisoned after their Chapters had drawn his scrutiny. This continued until the Inquisitor was slain by the Grey Knights, after he became possessed by a Daemon during his purge of the Grey Slayers Chapter. In the subsequent Ordo Malleus investigation into how he could have become possessed, Thrax’s holdings were seized by an Inquisitor, who discovered Titus and the other imprisoned Space Marines. Though she could have dealt with them in a way that would hide Thrax’s shame, the Inquisitor instead sent the Space Marines to be evaluated at the Deathwatch Watch Fortress, Watcher Keep.
Titus Time With the Deathwatch
Titus would then be deemed free of heresy and though he cast Thrax and Drogan from this thoughts, his experiences with them would forever alter the Ultramarine’s opinions, and dealing with Inquisitors. However while he was no longer a prisoner, Titus felt he had no home to return to, as he had not received any contact from the Ultramarines, since he left Graia. This led him to believe his actions had brought shame to the Chapter and because of this, Titus felt he was no longer worthy of bearing his name or of being an Ultramarine. He then gladly joined Watcher Keep’s Deathwatch forces as the Blackshield Nullus, as it would give him a chance to continue serving the Emperor and the Imperium. He was content to die fighting Humanity’s Xenos foes and his chance would come during the Fourth Tyrannic War. After Hive Fleet Grendyllus invaded the Bastior Sub-sector, Watcher Keep’s Watch Master, Vaedrian Shenol, led its Watch Company Primus to battle against the Tyranids. They were then split to aid in the defense of different worlds and Nullus’ Kill-Team Kasaeran joined the effort to save Kadaku. However during their descent into the besieged world, Kasaeran’s Corvus Blackstar crash landed, after it was attacked by flying Tyranids. The downed craft was then swarmed by the Xenos and Nullus was gravelly wounded by a Carnifex, while the rest of the Kill-Team was slain. Before the Tyranids could kill him, however, an Ultramarines Solblade strike force arrived to aid the Deathwatch.
Demetrian Titus Rejoins the Ultramarines
It was led by the Chapter’s Chief Librarian Varro Tigurius who had sensed Titus’ soul and had ordered the Strike Cruiser Righteous Fury to reach his location on Kadaku. They had not known what became of the lost Captain and learned his involvement with the Deathwatch, as they deployed on the world. While they were too late to save Kadaku, Tigurius’ Solblade forces kept the Tyranids at bay long enough for the Deathwatch to escape from the Xenos. This included Titus, but the Chief Librarian brought the wounded Captain aboard the Righteous Fury, so that he could be finally reunited with the Ultramarines. However his wounds were so severe, that Titus’ only chance of surviving was to undergo the Calgarian Rites aboard the Strike Cruiser and become a Primaris Space Marine. He successfully did so and as the unconscious Captain recovered from the operation, Tigurius psychically checked to see if Titus bore the mark of Chaos upon him. While some of their Battle Brothers were apprehensive of Titus rejoining the Ultramarines, due to his long unexplained absence, Tigurius declared the Captain was free from any taint.
The Chief Librarian soon informed the Ultramarines’ Chapter Master of this, which led Marneus Calgar to immediately reinstate Titus into the Ultramarines. This officially put an end to any doubts about him, and Calgar declared Titus would once again serve with the Chapter’s 2nd Company. Titus would not serve as its Captain, though, as Sevastus Acheran now held the title, and instead the Primaris became one of the 2nd’s Lieutenants instead. Though Captain Acheran had only just left the 10th Company, when Titus was taken into custody by Inquisitor Gerome Thrax, the Lieutenant accepted his new rank when he later awoke. Having once more been reunited with his Chapter and reclaimed his name, Titus was ready and resolved to bring the Ultramarines’ wrath upon the foes of the Imperium. He is currently among the Ultramarines’ forces defending the Hive World Avarax from a Tyranid invasion
Demetrian Titus’s Story has only Begun…
