A/N: Well, its been a while since the last update for people who have been around since the start. A lot of IRL stuff combined with an honest lack of interest in writing heavily postponed this story, especially as I was planning, rewriting and replanning. Now I have a much better idea of what I want to do. One of the big things I critiques I got and took to heart was the lack of down time, how the story went from one battle to the next and I realized that was because in part, I never bothered to give proper characterization to anyone.

If you are just joining and new, welcome to my take on the beloved ToyHammer AU setting/theme. I hope you enjoy the new story and chapters as they come out.

If you are returning and have read previously, things might change a bit. Some will stay the same, some things will be completely different but hopefully all should still be entertaining.

As I am rewriting/making new chapters, I will keep the old chapters at least until I feel like I'm in a similar place with the rewrite. Once I feel that I have caught up enough, I'll probably move the old chapters into a seperate story and call it "legacy" or whatever for posterity. Might be fun to see the differences between the old and the new.

Anyways, thank you everyone who read and favorited/followed this fic even after a months long hiatus. It truly means the world to me and you have no idea the kind of motivation it gives me.

-Clock


KABWOOM

There are few things that inspire fear in the hearts of an Astarte the same way that a normal, human heart could be stirred. The threat of being lost and ripped apart in the Warp was high on that list.

The crew of the Divine Ordinance thought they had been safe once they had gotten into the Warp, losing their pursuers with a bold jump into the Immaterium. Yet something had gone wrong only after a short while in the Warp. Alarms blared, klaxons wailed and strange readings zoomed across every bridge monitor and cogitator, never before seen even by the centuries old Chapter Master of the ship: Fleet Admiral Jagon Vaynce.

The main engines were dead, but the secondary and tertiary engines were outputting nearly triple times their normal maximum power output. Fires were being reported across every other deck. The Gellar Fields were flickering; dark voices promised distant power to the Fleet Admiral, dredging up painful memories when the temptations failed. The Navigator was catatonic and on the floor. Which was better than most of the Astropaths who had turned into chunky meat slurry. Guns were firing off into the Warp without input and fire suppression systems laughed as they sprayed foam and fire retardant everywhere. Reports of a hull breach and decompression on Deck 754 caused Vaynce to panic before realizing that the ship didn't have 754 decks.

CLANG

The ship suddenly stopped mid-fight, but the inertia sent the bridge crew tumbling over their consoles or slamming into the floor. It was only thanks to their superhuman reflexes that the few Space Marines on the bridge managed to turn on their magboots just in time. Even then, they could feel their bodies slam against the inside of their armor.

Without warning, the ship hurled itself back into motion, again knocking the mortal crew all over the place. The latest report from the engine room reported that all engines had suddenly turned back on but the course wasn't being changed.

A chill then shot up the Admiral's spine. The ship wasn't thrusting forward, something was pulling it. Something in the Warp was yanking the Divine Ordinance towards itself, almost certainly to a horrific end. With a power armored fist, Admiral Jagon Vaynce gripped his master command console hard enough to crack the baroque corner and shouted into the ship wide announcement system.

"This is the Admiral. All hands... Brace for impact!"


WHAM!

Max Wu slammed his alarm clock silent, the pounding in his head refusing to go away as a dull tone stubbornly sat in his ear. He curled up in his blankets, hoping for the sound to go away, mumbling incoherently at nobody in particular.

He had been ripped out of a fleeting dream he could barely remember. He saw a ship but it was full of alcohol and cabbages. It was sailing on a black blanket and there was a pirate song playing in the background. At some point there were crusaders involved and a host of assorted anime girls, all trying to rob some Brazilian bank. Somehow hammers were involved in a perfectly logical way along with an unethical amount of vinegar.

Max blinked at his ceiling. A single thought lazily bobbed across his mind; what the fuck was his dream.

KRA-BOOM

Max threw himself out of bed and nearly landed face first on the floor when he heard the loud boom from downstairs. The thoughts of his dream faded into panic. Did something explode? Gas line? Water pipe? Was someone breaking into his house? He lived in a pretty safe area but he was somewhat isolated. Grabbing an old baseball bat out of the closet, Max cautiously made his way downstairs in his underwear.

As he turned the corner to look down the main hall into the open common area, he saw tens of thousands of tiny soldiers look at him. They looked ready to kill each other before they all noticed the giant leaning out of the corner. One brave soul fired a rocket at the titan, watching it harmlessly whiz by and explode on a coat hook.

"What. The. Fuck." Max just barely said the first thing that came to mind before he had just barely dodged out of the way in time of a hail of exotic, futuristic bullets.

"Whoa, whoa! Stop firing! Stop firing!" Max shouted as he covered his head.

"Did it just speak in Aeldari?" One of the Eldar Exarchs lowered their weapon in confusion, "Since when has a Mon'keigh spoken our noble tongue?"

"What heresy do you speak of, xeno! The Titan speaks the Emperor's Gothic!" A Sister of Battle shouted back before realizing what was going on, "Wait. How did I know what you said?"

"Fools, the primitive speaks in T'au!" A voice shouted through a speaker system from a concentration of Tau soldiers.

Max looked at his hands and then the floor before peaking back over the edge, now no longer being shot at. He recognized who the soldiers were, warriors of the 41st millenium: Eldar, Tau, Imperial Guard, Space Marines and Sisters of Battle. There was no way he should be able to understand them, let alone them understanding him. Gothic was probably the closest to modern English, but even then Gothic in the lore had millions of regional dialects, not accounting for the literal thousands of years of linguistic evolution.

"Okay, before we all start shooting again." Max walked back out of the stairwell with his hands in the hair, "Lets just calm down for a second and talk because something weird is going on."

"Never! Not with the vile Xenos!"

"Never! Not with the brute Imperials!"

The Tau and Sisters barked in near perfect unison, completely oblivious to their agreement

Max sighed. He swore he once read a story online about something just like this. Unlike in the story though, at least they hadn't blown up his house yet. "Yet" being the defining word in that statement. Although they looked like they had at least a few skirmishes; Max noticed several new cracks in the wall and a very suspicious looking burn mark. As for what the hell the explosion that woke him up, there were about a hundred different possible culprits to it in front of him but he imagined it probably had something to do with the huge Imperial ship innocently sitting between two splintered halves of his dinner table. Seriously, Max had seen suitcases smaller than the ship.

"Okay, let me inform you a little bit as to what's going on right now." Max's words rapidly spilled out of his mouth, as if any pause would break everyone's attention just enough for them to start shooting at him or each other, "Right now, you are in a relatively dangerous location. You may all be the great warriors, but when most of you are the size of my thumb, size alone could crush you."

"Is there a point to your insults?" A Space Marine's voice boomed

"What I'm saying is that I am willing to shelter everyone in my home, under my own roof for the time being. Outside there are about a million different things that could kill you from wild animals to just cars driving over you all. Hell, I'm pretty sure rain could be dangerous to at least drown half of you upright."

"So you can keep us as pets for whatever twisted machinations you plan?" An Eldar Ranger shouted from the counter top.

"As guests." Max sighed. He swore he had good intentions, but the rampant paranoia of most factions in Warhammer was becoming apparent. Although, he could use it.

"Look, in my house I'm willing to keep you guys safe and fed. Outside, there are forces stronger than I am who are a lot less altruistic. If they ever find you, they will most certainly capture you, interrogate you and then dissect you all." Max pointed to his door.

"So it's either we are lab rats or we get to be your pets, assuming we trust you at your word." An Imperial Guard officer bellowed through a megaphone, "How do we know you aren't part of those 'stronger forces" outside?"

"Because if I was, you think I'd really be talking to you guys like this? I would have let you guys kill each other while waiting for whatever black unmarked van would come by and then swipe all of you guys up." Max leaned on his baseball bat, pretending he had brought it down just to use as a cane instead of a possible self defense weapon.

The minis looked at each other within their respective groups. The Imperials seemed the most sympathetic to the idea, possibly because of natural racial affinity to a fellow human. Who was about 50 times their size but it was the thought that counted.

"Plus, I know some information about you guys, I've got a wealth of knowledge about all your ins and outs." Max remarked in an off hand sort of way, thoroughly surprised when everyone looked at him with dead silent faces as if they knew all of their deepest secrets.

The respective leadership mumbled amongst each other with small arguments breaking out. The Eldar had an intense staring match with each other while the Space Marines disappeared into the bowels of the massive ship that had destroyed Max's dining table. The Tau, Guard and Sisters had whatever honor guard make room and push the rank and file away. The Tau in particular seemed to be the most divided with an elderly Tau on a floating throne staring down a Battlesuit twice as tall as him without a shred of fear in his eyes.

"The Tau will accept your terms of housing." The Battlesuit commander looked back at a glowering Ethereal, "Under the conditions that we are kept away from the humans."

One by one the other factions made similar statements. The Guard said that they wanted their own section of the house while the Sisters demanded to also be given a section of the house but closest to other Imperials instead of having to even entertain the thought of cohabiting with the xenos. The Space Marines honestly weren't that fussed and just wanted to stay on the wreck of their ship that might as well have just replaced Max's dining room-area. The Eldar took the longest time to deliberate between themselves. Max wondered if they were carefully considering their options, or trying to decide if their egos would allow them to take the hospitality of a primitive giant.

"On behalf of the Craftworld of Sanhem, we too accept this arrangement. UNDER the clause that we choose the boundaries of our domain."

Max was about to smile, thinking he had just gotten all of these factions who'd normally be at each other's throats to agree to something diplomatically. And then the Tau demanded the same right of choosing their territory. Which led to the Sisters also calling for the same privilege. Not wanting to be left out, the Guardsmen too demanded the right and the Space Marines soon followed, although they mostly just wanted to know how far beyond their ship they could go.

Mentally, Max screamed into his own brain. He was expecting to have to put out physical fires, even ready to order more fire extinguishers. Having to put out diplomatic fires however, was an entirely different task.

In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, apparently there were only egos the size of starships and the streaks of pride measured in lightyears.