Welcome, one and all!

Throughout my life, I've always thought about and wondered what would happen if characters from different stories came together. It was always a bit of a small hobby of mine, though I didn't tell anyone nor did I know it had a name.

However, that changed when I found fan writings. It seems that quite a few people have those same ideas. Indeed, there's an entry category of very popular stories dedicated to them: crossover stories.

It was then that I got an idea. My old ideas of multiple different characters meeting each other mixed with my newfound interest in fan fiction stories, crossovers, and science fiction in general. This resulted in quite possibly one of the most interesting, exciting, and best ideas for a story I've ever come up with.

I did write a few very short stories with this concept a few years back, but I did not feel confident enough to actually write out a full story. However, I have grown exponentially as a writer over the last years, and with everything I've learned writing my very popular other crossover series, Technophiles, I finally feel the time is right and my writing is good enough to do the idea justice.

I should mention that this is the prologue - the beginning of how this story takes form and how these worlds collide. The main characters and story is to come. This might be a tad confusing, but if I didn't include it, people would wonder how this all happened, so here it is. Worry not, this story is beginner friendly in all respects (if it wasn't with so many different universes, then there wouldn't be much point in it not being beginner-friendly). Sit back, enjoy, and the next chapter where things really begin will be out soon.

NOTE 8/8/23: There is a CODEX, a separate story in my profile, for help with the various characters and universes that this story contains, should you wish for more information.

So, here we go! This is the ultimate science fiction crossover. I promise I will not disappoint.

With Characters By:

Gene Roddenberry

George Lucas

Bungie Studios

Bioware

Marvel Studios

Sandy Mitchell

Games Workshop

Respawn Entertainment

starrfallknightrise

thelordofdarkreunion

In Association With:

starrfallknightrise

Beta-Read By and With the Assistance Of:
Doc43Souls

Serendipity001

Created and Written By:

thelordofdarkreunion

I proudly present to you:

MAGNIFICENT SCOUNDRELS

oOo

Prologue: Catalyst

"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, its five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations… To boldly go where no man has gone before." -Intro to Star Trek: The Original Series

"The year is 2552. Humanity is at war with an alien alliance known as "the Covenant".

We are losing.

The Covenant have burned our worlds, killing billions in their genocidal campaign. Earth is our last bastion - a carefully guarded secret.

But not anymore." -Intro to Halo

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away…" -Intro to Star Wars

"In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time.

They called it the greatest discovery in human history.

The civilizations of the galaxy call it…

The Mass Effect." -Intro to Mass Effect

"You said it yourself, bitch! We're the Guardians of the Galaxy!" -Introducing the Guardians of the Galaxy

"Of all the things I've seen on the battlefields of the Frontier, the Pilot is the true dominant force. Fast and agile, graceful yet devastating. Perceptive, resourceful, and relentless, a Pilot sees the world differently. Sheer walls become flanking routes. Pilots fight differently. Experienced in deception and maneuvering, even overwhelming odds shift in their favor.

But what truly separates the Pilot from all the grunts and machines of the battlefield is the bond between a Pilot and a Titan. When linked to a Titan, a Pilot can only be stopped by overwhelming force… or an equal.

The Frontier has been the only home I've ever known. For years, our lands have been destroyed by the IMC, forcefully taking our resources; polluting and destroying our planets, and killing us off if we try to resist. Despite recent victories at Demeter and beyond, we have a long way to go before the IMC is defeated.

Now I serve as a Rifleman in the Militia, fighting to free the Frontier. I'm a long way from becoming a Pilot, but when that day comes, I hope I can live up to the honor." -Intro to Titanfall 2

"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor of Mankind has sat immoble on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the vast Imperium of Man to whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomicon, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineers super-warriors who know no fear. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defense forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat to humanity from aliens, heretics, mutants - and far, far worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of science and technology, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods." -Intro to Warhammer 40,000

oOo

The space flowed with power. Forbidden energies, swirling with outlandish and almost obscene colors, danced through the void. It was hard to tell exactly where this was. The ground was broken and rocky, with the whisperings of force coming from beneath it. No one could see the space beyond. An infinite and all-encompassing blackness sucked the light from anything beyond the illumination of the curling tendrils of light and power. Strange symbols, carved by an unknown hand, glowed on the larger pieces of rocky ground. Their might was enough to drive mortals mad, to corrupt entire worlds. But one, or two, would not do. All of the runes were needed.

In a large, circular piece of ground, inscribed with the most complex of these runes, stood figures. Towering eight feet tall, clad in heavy, bulky armor, they stood silently in a perfect circle as the runes glowed and strange magic flowed around them. White robes ruffled faintly as the magic pulsed, twirling around arms and legs encased in turquoise-blue embellished with gold. Heavy and ornately-carved helmets covered faces. Staves, heavily ornamented, were clenched in hands. The figures stood silent, unmoving.

The atmosphere was fraught with tension. Bizarre colors flickered off shining armor. Fingers flexed around staves, or clutched amulets around necks. Weird symbols glowed to life, then faded from existence. Whispers, groans, yells, sounded just on the edge of super-human hearing. Thousands of voices flickered through each figure's mind, giving compliments, insults, encouragements, and criticisms. Some said to stop. Some said to continue. Others ranted about things that had been, some about things that would never be. It was an unfortunate side effect that their minds had to be open to the voices. The voices were enough to drive most insane. Those voices had caused the destruction of continents, planets, and even species. The armored figures endured them without a word. The strangeness, the atmosphere of this place did not concern them. They had much practice with such things. They had endured much worse. Their minds were strong enough to resist.

As rays of unearthly power hemmed and flowed, two other figures walked through the broken and floating rubble. They came from the blackness beyond, from the writhing, twisted and obscene colors, ever-changing in their mind-bending multitudes. The duo headed for a small rocky outcropping slightly above the waiting circle; a small raised dais above the glowing power of the runes.

They too were giants, clad in the same elaborate turquoise and gold armor as those standing mutely in the circle. Extraordinarily large and heavy shoulder pauldrons, engraved with strange runic symbols flowed into bulky breastplates covered with highly detailed and equally-bizarre glyphs. These flowed into massive greaves the size of young tree trunks. The armored legs were accentuated and covered by flowing robes: a strange violet-crimson for the leader, and a simple white for the follower.

The follower walked a pace behind the first giant. His armor was the same gold-accentuated turquoise as the rest here, bearing ornate runic inscriptions and festooned with bizarre talismans. A staff of gold, tipped with intricate three-dimensional geometric shapes, was held in the right hand as the left dangled empty. A helmet, looking something like that of a knight, covered the head. Two golden horns articulated with turquoise, sweeping up in a u-shape, tipped the sides as a simple golden rectangle, almost like a feathered plume, came from the forehead to slightly above the helm's height.

The armor of the leading giant was much more detailed than any of the rest. Carved with flowing inscriptions and symbols throughout, it was of much finer quality even to the untrained eye. Strange talismans, a small book bound in odd leather, and the skulls of some unknown creatures festooned the chest and dangled off the belt. Displayed upon the giant's left shoulder pauldron was a beast's horned skull.

Held in the right hand was a staff much more ornate and dangerous-looking than any of the other giants' present. It was roughly T-shaped, the butt ending in a spearpoint. The center of the cross was ordained by an eye-shaped stone of milky-pale blue, and topped by two upward-twisting horns. Though imperceptible to the mortal eye, to the other giants watching the staff appeared as a blazing black absence in the surrounding void.

The helmet was also much more ornate than any of the others, including the individual following a pace behind. Two huge horns highlighted with gold, twisted high above even as smaller ones jutted out from the sides of the helmet and underscored the mouth as tusks below. Instead of a simple armet or greathelm as the followers wore, the helmet's face was organized in a T-shape. The upward cross of the T molded from a straight line to the shape of eyes, giving the visage a horrifyingly intimidating look. Crackling blue power of untold depth and terrible strength blazed from behind the vision slits, basking the surrounding in its malevolent-looking gaze.

The helm was topped off with an eye of pale blue looking out from the forehead. As the giant walked, the eye would occasionally look around or blink casually.

"Brother…" began the following giant, his voice a whisper even as its pitch was a near-inhuman baritone. "I… I am unsure of this path."

The leader stopped a moment to look back at the man following him. The terrible glowing gaze from behind the helm turned from regal, powerful, aloof, and malevolent to simply normal, as if casually conversing with a friend.

"We must continue," replied the leader, his voice much the same as the man's behind him. "We have come so far and learned so much. We must continue, for the sake of correcting our mistakes and restoring the Legion and our brothers once more. We cannot flounder or fail, for their sake." His voice became haunted, even softer than a whisper. "We cannot fail again, like we- like I did before." In reply, the follower simply sighed.

"Brother, please," he begged. "You don't know what will happen. We failed the first time because we rushed, because we didn't stop to think if-"

"This time is different," hissed the leader in reply. "It has been ten thousand years, ten thousand years of studying, of planning, of learning and preparing. We are ready. There is nothing else we can do. We must enact this, for the sake of our Legion and the brothers I damned so long ago." He turned to walk forward, and made it a few paces before the following man stepped forward and grabbed him by the shoulder. He spun around, gaze angry.

"Ignis, are you having second thoughts after all this time?" the leader demanded. "Was I wrong to place you as an agent with Sanakht? Did he change your mind?"

"No," replied the man, Ignis. His voice was upset. "But think of the cost. Think of all you have done, all we have done over these countless centuries. We have destroyed so much, killed so many… And does that make it worth it? Simply because you did all this, are we ready? Amon? Sanakht? Our brothers?"

"We have the knowledge," hissed the leader once more. "We are ready. We cannot fail."

"How do you know that?" demanded Ignis. "Tell me, brother, how?"

"We can't fail," replied the leader, turning away again. Ignis stopped him. He glared angrily at the second man. "What? Why are you suddenly like this, Ignis? What have your numbers told you that you haven't told me?"

"Nothing," replied Ignis, still upset. "I would never betray you, brother. I am by your side. But… But the numbers say nothing. There is no known path forward. We cannot predict what will happen. None of us can. Just like the last Rubric. How do we know this one won't result in something worse?"

"Because I know it won't." Ignis sighed, frustrated and angry, and ran a hand nervously over his helmet.

"And that's why I question it, brother. Why has all of this happened to us? Amon? Horus? Dorn? Perturabo? Fulgrim? Our grandfather? Our father? You? All these terrible things happen because of our stupid pride. If you would but lay down your ego down for just a moment, you might realize this could result in something worse."

"I am not our father, and certainly not our grandfather." It was the leader's turn to be angry. "Our father was the one who damned us in the first place. I tried to fix it, but I failed. This time we have enough preparation, and we won't." He turned away once more and continued his inexorable path forward towards the raised dais of stone above the waiting circle. Ignis made a muted noise of frustration before jogging to catch up. This time he grabbed the leader by the shoulder and stepped in front of him, face-to-face.

"Ahzek, I beg of you, please, do not do this!" Two helmet lenses, glowing with unearthly pale blue power, looked at each other, one pleadingly, one stonily. "Please. We don't know what will happen, and I suspect it might be something terrible. Please."

"I have everything prepared," replied Ahzek. His left hand reached into his robe and pulled a hefty tome bound in a strange, flickering leather. A cluster of eyes coated the front. As Ahzek displayed the book, the eyes blinked mournfully up at Ignis. "There is nothing else we can do. If there is anything more, then please, Ignis, tell me. Tell me what else we need, what else we can do to prepare."

"There's nothing else," replied Ignis with a frustrated sigh. Ahzek nodded, and made a motion to turn once more. "But that doesn't mean we know what will happen!" said Ignis desperately. Ahzek turned back.

"There is nothing more we can do. Now you will either help me with the ritual, or you won't." The two stared at each other for a brief moment before Ignis swallowed and looked away.

"Yes… Yes, of course. Brother. My lord Ahriman." He sighed again. "Prepare the ritual."

Ahzek Ahriman, sorcerer lord without equal, stepped forward onto the dais. His brothers beneath him looked up as he and Ignis took their places. Finally, they would begin.

"Brothers, today is the culmination of ten thousand years of work!" Countless masked faces looked upwards in excitement. "Today we shall undo what has been done, undo our mistakes of the past! We shall once more restore our Legion to glory, and our lost brothers to life!" So saying, Ahriman took a step back. Taking the strange, eye-coated book from his belt, he raised his left hand, palm upwards. The book began to levitate in midair, eyes blinking in confusion. With a gesture, it opened, pages flapping wildly in a non-existent wind.

Ahzek's outstretched hand and ornate stave began to glow with unearthly power as he started to chant in a horrifying, mind-bending language that twisted the very fabric of the void around them. The runes etched in the surfaces of the ritual site began to glow. Behind Ahzek, Ignis raised his own hand and staff high, eldritch power growing around him, adding his support to the ritual.

Below, the assembled sorcerers raised their own arms, each interlocking their powers and minds as one. Runes glowed and all the assembled sorcerers took up a chant in that same awful, reality-warping language as the Second Rubric of Ahriman began.

oOo

Elsewhere

"It's your lucky day, hero." Jack Cooper cursed in frustration. Around him, BT-7274, his loyal, reliable, dependable Titan, was down and out, internal systems and AI frazzled by the Ark's powerful backblast. The Ark was deployed. The Fold Weapon, an esoteric artifact capable of bending space and time, was going to fire and annihilate a whole planet with its power source in place. Cooper and BT had failed.

Now Kuben Blisk, ace Titan Pilot, tough mercenary leader and war criminal extraordinaire, was standing atop BT's chassis while the Titan desperately tried to reboot. Cooper was trapped inside; both he and BT were completely at Blisks' mercy. The HUD in front of him frazzled with static, side effects of the Ark's extraordinary power. The Titan Pilot swore to himself again.

"I'm not going to kill you." Cooper looked up sharply. What… was this? Blisk held out his arms and shrugged, thick South African accent coming clearly through BT's cockpit even as the Titan's video systems frazzled. "I don't work for free."

Ah. That made perfect sense.

"But…" Cooper looked up again as Blisk crouched down, staring directly at Cooper despite the Titan chassis separating them. "You don't get to kill me, either…" The mercenary chuckled.

Blisk stood back, face suddenly serious. He reached a hand inside his vest-like Pilot's armor. From within, he pulled a simple rectangle. Looking at it fondly, he dropped it down atop BT's chassis.

Cooper stared in complete and utter shock as the card fell directly at his eyeline. Engraved on it was the simple word "Apex" atop a horned skull symbol.

This… Kuben Blisk was giving him his business card. Kuben Blisk… was giving him… his business card. He, who had foiled the Apex Predator Mercenaries at every turn. He, who had killed them to the last man besides Blisk himself. Cooper should have been flattered, but he was more awed and confused. Blisk was giving him his business card?

"Here - you earned this, eh?" Blisk nodded knowingly as a teacher might at a star pupil and tapped the card against BT's still-rebooting frame. The mercenary stood to his full height as a new voice entered the conversation.

"Blisk?" came the crisp German accent of General Marder, commander of the Fold Weapon and the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation's Archaeological Research Division. Cooper groaned internally. Marder was the mastermind behind all of this. Blisk was just a mercenary, hired to protect the Weapon at the IMC's behest. "That Vanguard-class Titan is still in there!" Of course, Marder wasn't here in person. Why should he do the dirty work when he could have other people do it for him?

"Not my problem, Marder," replied Blisk, still looking down at Cooper within BT's chassis. For his part, Cooper's eyes widened in shock. He managed a small laugh of sudden hope. He always did somewhat like Blisk. Sure, the man was a mercenary, a war criminal, but he was always polite about it. To him, it was just business. He wasn't a sadist like most of his now-dead crew. "Should have put it in my contract. I've got other people with money to see." So saying, Blisk's Titan came behind him, grabbed him in a massive metal hand, and neatly deposited the mercenary within his chassis.

"What are you doing?" demanded Marder. "What do you think you are doing?" Blisk's Titan simply walked away, completely uncaring of the general's demands behind him. Cooper gave a stifled, weird laugh of sudden hope. Blisk was leaving. He was letting them destroy the Fold Weapon.

The man might have been a bastard, but damn if he wasn't magnificent.

"My- erghkch- analysisisisis indicates a thhhhhrow is throw is a throw is a- our- grrgg- only opinion here," came BT's garbled voice. Cooper immediately fixated back to the present, and their mission. His Titan was still rebooting, if the regurgitated lines from his memory were any indication. The text 'initiating emergency restart' scrawled over the HUD.

Cooper sat there for a moment, silently waiting for his friend to come back online before the welcome text 'aux power online' scrolled in front of him.

"Cooper, I require your assistance," came BT's metallic voice, still garbled but much more audible. "My auto-navigation systems are offline. Get me into that injector assembly. We must do this together." Cooper nodded to himself and grinned as BT finally stood up under his own power.

"Boost the signal." A faint but very familiar voice suddenly sounded over Cooper's interior radio. The voice of Commander Sarah Briggs, Cooper's boss and head of Marauder Corps, suddenly sounded crisp and clear in Cooper's ear. "BT! Cooper! Our ground teams can't make it there in time! You've got to find a way to destroy the Fold Weapon from the inside! There's no other way!"

Indeed there wasn't. Despite Blisk letting them live, despite them being the only people inside the room where the Ark power source was directly deployed into the Fold weapon, the Ark was still deployed and the Weapon was being prepped to fire. If they didn't hurry, Marder would win and freedom fighters of the Militia would lose their capital planet and every soul on it. There was a sudden pressure and urgency pounding through Cooper's very bones as the unimaginable toll of failure weighed on his mind.

"Commander Briggs, I believe I have a solution," replied BT, voice sounding stronger by the second. "In its exposed state, my reactor core may be able to destabilize the Ark at the center of the Fold Weapon." That much was true. The Fold Weapon was a series of ever-spinning geometric rings that harnessed the energy of the Ark power source. If they were able to use the Ark injector to launch themselves into the Ark itself… Well, this just might work.

"What are you saying?" asked Briggs warily.

"We can blow it up. I'm sending you my coordinates for a dropship rendezvous." All the while, Cooper painstakingly guided the still-sluggish BT into the cannon-like Ark injector, ready to be fired into the Weapon below.

He knew this was a one-way trip. He didn't really care. Their lives were more than worth a planet full of people and the survival of the Militia cause. Plus, he would die with BT, probably his best friend. There were worse ways to go.

"Coordinates received," replied Briggs. "We'll be there, but I don't see how you can."

"Trust me. I have done the math," said BT reassuringly. It was indeed quite reassuring, at least to Cooper. BT was an AI, and when he said he did the math for something… well, then it meant he knew it would work. Maybe there was a way out of this after all, though Cooper's very human gut instinct still somehow told him otherwise.

"I sure as hell hope so. We're on our way. Good luck - both of you. Briggs out."

Finally, they were in the barrel of the cannon. BT settled back into position as the injector powered up.

"Don't worry, BT," said Cooper. "I'm not going anywhere." And he meant it. He was suddenly comfortable, perfectly at peace with the idea of death. It meant little to him - all he wanted was to die with BT.

"Copy that, Pilot," replied BT. As the injector cannon lit up with power, there was a sudden rush and Cooper felt through his neural link BT's body being propelled forward as if it were his own.

They were suddenly airborne, the rings of the Fold Weapon spinning in front of them, the clear sky ahead and the distant sounds of battle in their ears.

"Protocol Three: Protect the Pilot," said BT suddenly. His hatch opened, and Cooper was abruptly exposed to open air as BT's metallic arm reached inside and grabbed his Pilot. Pulling him outside, face-to-face as Cooper squirmed in his grip, BT's optics looked down at his Pilot once more.

"BT! What are you doing?" demanded Cooper, an ounce of pure pain in his voice the soldier was unable to suppress. But he knew what BT was doing in some part of the back of his mind, even if he didn't want to believe it. Titans had three main protocols, and the last was to protect the Pilot. At any cost.

"Trust me," said BT simply. If a Titan could be reassuring, it would have been BT at that moment. Reaching back, even as they fell through the sky, BT-7274 reached back and threw Cooper upwards, away from the Ark at the center of the weapon as his own metallic body plummeted downwards into oblivion and mission completion.

"BT!" cried Cooper desperately, tears streaking down his face from behind his helmet as he watched his best friend fly into the center of the Ark… and detonate.

Everything seemed to slow as rock chunks floated through the air as the Fold Weapon, a strange artifact built by an unknown hand and designed to warp space and time, exploded below Cooper.

oOo

A wave of force, powerful enough to knock back even the armored giants, swept through the ritual site. The painstakingly-transcribed runes on the rocky ground flickered ominously. The level of energy and power throughout the site grew. Electric charges danced off armor and swirled through the void.

Ignis's eyes widened behind his helm. Another nearby rune flickered. The sudden image of the complete collapse of the ritual flashed through his mind, and the unthinkable consequences of failure.

It would have failed if not for Ahriman. If it had been anyone but Ahriman, loyal, powerful, capable Ahzek running the ritual, it would have destabilized and they would all have been damned.

With a cry of exertion of pure defiance against the heavens and Lord of Change itself, Ahriman thrust his hands forward and proceeded to bleed off the excess power swirling around them, drawing it into himself. The runes stabilized. The power still danced around them, the levels still far beyond normal or optimal, but the Rubric stabilized once more.

"What was that?" cried one of the sorcerers from below.

"I… I do not know!" shouted back Ahriman in reply. He gave a muted grunt of agony as he continued to draw unfathomable levels of power into his own body to secure the ritual around them. "But continue! Continue! We have already begun, and we cannot stop at this point!" That much was true. Once already begun, they could not stop the ritual. Plus, they had to continue before Ahzek lost control or simply collapsed in exhaustion and released the energy once more. "Keep going!"

oOo

Elsewhere

"God dammit!" swore Captain Feldergin as alarms blared throughout the bridge of the USS Pluto. Around him, various crewmen scrambled around the bridge, desperately trying to restore order to the ship and its various systems. Feldergin pressed a button on the console in front of him and leaned down to shout into it. "Engineering! What's the damn problem down there?" he demanded over the shrill shriek of alarms.

"Engineering to bridge, we seem to have a Warp drive incident," came the very frazzled-sounding voice of Chief Engineer Wistrom.

"Damn!" swore Feldergin again. It might not have been particularly professional for a Starfleet Captain to swear, especially in front of his crew, but they were far past that point.

The bridge was lit by deep red emergency lighting, interspaced with the flashes of alarms. The various crewmen rushed around in controlled chaos, trying to restore order to the ship with little success.

"Tell me what's going on!" demanded Felgergin to Wistrom.

"The new Warp drive core is going haywire!" replied Wistrom. This time, Feldergin managed to keep his swearing to himself, though either way it would do little to fix the present situation. "We're trying to stabilize it, but it's brand new, experimental, and we're not quite sure of what to do…" trailed off the engineer.

"I swear to God if those R&D fucks make me breach the Prime Directive, I'll have their heads for this!" The Pluto had been recently fitted with a new and highly experimental Warp drive by the Starfleet high command. It was their duty to test it, and though everyone aboard had been a bit apprehensive of it. This was the most rigorous test so far: trying to make a high-speed Warp jump with it. Apparently, it wasn't up to the task, and Captain Feldergin was now beside himself with fury at the R&D department that apparently hadn't bothered to tell them anything about what to do in this sort of situation.

There were certainly incidents of time displacement in the Starfleet, for that was simply the nature of how Warp drives ran. From what Feldergin knew, most of them had been aboard the USS Enterprise under Captain James Kirk. He didn't have an opinion on the matter either way. However, the Prime Directive, the first rule of the Starfleet, was to not interfere with the development of alien civilizations, and thus by blunt extension don't cause time-travel problems.

It seemed as if that was exactly where the Pluto was heading, despite Wistrom and her engineers doing their utmost to stop it. Feldergin was more worried about the safety of his ship and crew. This new drive core might send them somewhere else, it might send them sometime else, or it might just blow up the ship. Who knew? Certainly not the people who made it and gave it to him.

"Uh, Captain, I think we have a problem…" came the voice of Wistrom from the captain's console. Feldergin's eyes widened in sudden horror as he recognized the tell-tale signs of a sudden and very unexpected and probably time-shenanigan-y Warp jump.

"All hands brace for Warp jump!" he managed to get out before they were sucked into the void.

oOo

Another wave of power swept through the ritual site. The sorcerers took it stoically, locking their armor and minds and resisting the force that blew through their midst. The runes flickered again.

In his mind's eye, Ignis noted the level of energy swirling around them. It was steadily increasing, and while Ahriman, himself, and the others had it under control, it was still very much alarming. Who knew what could happen with this level of power around them? They hadn't planned for any of this.

"Ahzek, what's going on?" called Ignis, slightly nervous.

"I don't know!" shouted back Ahriman. A groan followed as the chief sorcerer continued to draw and hold power into himself to stabilize the ritual around them. "We're opening up sorcerous powers on an unprecedented scale! If there are energy backlashes from other places, whether in the Warp, the Materium, or beyond, then we could be feeling their aftershocks. I must research this…" Ahriman's voice trailed off, a note of his typical unquenchable curiosity for sorcerous power present in his voice before he winced in pain once more. "But continue! Continue! We must continue before we lose control or something else happens!"

oOo

Elsewhere

Steven Rogers lay broken and bloody upon the rocky and destroyed ground of what had once been the beautiful green outside of the Avengers' compound. Once been, before a certain insane, genocidal galactic conqueror subjected it to an orbital bombardment.

Said genocidal galactic conqueror, the so-called "Mad Titan" Thanos, had somehow arrived from the past thanks to the Avengers time-traveling there to get a bunch of cosmic space gems to undo what old, present-time Thanos had done: murder exactly half of all life in the galaxy. It was… complicated, especially for someone from World War II. Frankly, Rogers didn't quite understand half the stuff that went on anymore, but that wasn't particularly important. He could tell good guys from the bad guys (mostly because the bad guys were prone to giving long speeches on the overwhelming positives of genocide), and all he had to do was fight the bad guys and save the good guys. Simple enough.

However, despite the battlefield arrival of pretty much every ally the Avengers ever had and every opponent Thanos ever made, the Mad Titan and his army were still winning. The Avengers were playing keep-away with the Infinity Gauntlet, the artifact that held the magic space gems of untold power. If Thanos wore the Gauntlet, complete with the Infinity Stones, then he could complete his goal and win the battle with quite literally a snap of his fingers.

The issue was that Thanos was no slouch in combat. He had the Gauntlet.

He had knocked its carrier out of mid-air, sending the artifact flying. Rogers, accompanied by Thor, the literal Norse god of thunder (again, complicated), had briefly tied up Thanos in a struggle to prevent him from reaching the Gauntlet, but Thor had been thrown away and Rogers himself knocked to the ground and mercilessly pounded into submission.

As Rogers watched, laying helpless, every bone in his body feeling as if it were shattered, Thanos had grabbed the Gauntlet.

Eldritch energy, glowing the colors of the Infinity Stones that peppered the hand, flowed through Thanos's body. He gave a muted half scream, half groan of pain as the unfathomable energies of the cosmos took hold. Rogers watched in muted awe and terror. There was nothing he could do.

However, before Thanos could make the necessary gesture, Captain Marvel (another eclectic individual who could fly and was empowered by some sort of cosmic power apparently derived from the Stones; again, complicated), stopped him. The duo was locked in another battle, Marvel holding the Gauntlet open as Thanos struggled against her. Surprisingly, she seemed to be winning…

At least until Thanos grabbed one of the stones from the Gauntlet and promptly booted her into the upper atmosphere. Some treacherous part of Rogers' mind found that incredibly funny.

Again, Thanos whirled around, trying to snap his fingers to complete his terrible goal, but again, he was stopped by another hero. Tony Stark, "Iron Man", made a grab for the Gauntlet before Thanos threw him off. The two were locked in a brief, brutal, and incredibly violent duel for the Gauntlet before Thanos had finally beaten Stark into submission and tossed him aside. Rogers groaned and looked around. There was no one nearby capable of stopping the Mad Titan.

For his part, Thanos looked around smugly at all the ruination around him and held his hand high.

"I am… inevitable," he stated, before snapping his fingers. Rogers winced, instinctively closing his eyes, waiting for the backlash. The Gauntlet made a weird clicking noise, like a gun run dry of bullets. Thanos stared at it in confusion, tilting it backward only to find the Stones were gone. Rogers' eyes widened. Thanos whirled around to look at the fallen Stark.

Stark knelt in the dirt before Thanos, the Infinity Stones flowing upward to his own hand, stolen off Thanos's Gauntlet by the nano-technology in Stark's suit. The gems clicked in place, and Stark winced as his body shook in muted agony over the almighty power now flowing through his veins.

Thanos stared at the man in shock. Stark looked back up with a glare of pure defiance.

"And I… am… Iron Man."

He snapped his fingers.

oOo

With no warning, another wash of pure power washed over the ritual site.

Ahriman screamed in agony. A wall of eldritch force slammed into the sorcerers. Ignis could barely keep his balance. The various sorcerers beneath them, linked together and less powerful or prepared, were staggered or knocked to their knees.

The last, powerful blast of energy had finally undone the ritual. Ahriman, still trying to control the wildly fluctuating energies around them caused by the last two blasts, could not hang on any longer. With a cry, he was knocked to the ground as every iota of power within him was released. Ignis himself could not fault his brother; Ahriman was the greatest sorcerer alive. This situation… none of them could have planned for it. It was as if a man lifting a thousand pounds above his head had been punched in the stomach. He might have been good, but there was simply nothing he could have done.

The runes around them, carefully transcribed in minute perfection, glowed and cracked as the power within the chamber washed over them without Ignis or Ahriman's control. Howling shrieks filled the air. The void around them started to glow obscene colors, then melt back to no color, then back to every color at once in the span of microseconds. The rocky ground beneath the sorcerers' feet cracked and imploded, tendrils of energy flowing through it.

Ignis got to his feet shakily. Looking beneath, he saw the runes begin to flicker warningly as his brothers looked around in fear. The sudden mental image of everything imploding and all of them being cast into the Well at the center of reality, dissolving into nothingness, or, worse, becoming playthings to the Lord of Change for all eternity flickered through his mind. Ignis realized he could not let any of that happen.

Drawing upon every ounce of his power, augmenting it with the pure energy around them caused by the blasts, Ignis reached out with his staff and hand, holding them high. His wonderful numbers, the mathematical equations of time and fate, flowed around him in all their psychic glory. His form glowed a bright blue, dripping with eldritch energy like a shining candle in the darkest of rooms.

The other sorcerers looked on in awe as Ignis bound Time itself and commanded it to obey, and the world around them stood still.

The rocks, floating in midair, suspended purely by Ignis's sheer force of will and the power of unbelievable mathematics, were backlit by colors that were now solid and unmoving. The runes were still, some of them frozen in the middle of implosion. Everything was completely still, halted in place moments before catastrophe.

The first sorcerer to react below was Ctesias, the master of daemonolgy. Whirling around, he looked up to Ignis, locked in place with his hands outstretched and immediately realized what was happening. With a gesture, Ctesias opened a portal through the Warp and gestured at his brothers surrounding him.

"Come on!" he said with desperate urgency. Above, Ignis gritted his teeth as he struggled to keep time stopped. With this amount of power and chaos around them, it wasn't easy. A ritual gone wrong was never a pleasant nor easy thing to control, especially something as complicated as Ahriman's Rubric.

The sorcerers beneath quickly opened their own portals or followed Ctesias through his. Above, Ahriman got to his feet shakily and looked over to Ignis. Behind his elaborate helm, his eyes widened as he realized what Ignis was doing.

"Ignis! We must leave!" he called desperately, careful not to touch the man to shake his concentration.

For his part, Ignis gave no response. His only concern, his only focus, was on halting time within the chamber to allow his brothers to escape before everything quite literally went to hell.

Ahriman picked up the ritual book, its eyes now looking distinctly nervous, and jogged back to Ignis.

"Ignis! We need to go! Now!" he said. Ignis still kept his focus. Nothing else mattered but concentration.

With a frustrated and annoyed sound halfway between a growl and a sigh, Ahriman opened his own portal with a simple gesture. It did not matter he had been nearly incapacitated over the sheer amount of power he took inside himself, nor the amount of energy he expended: he was Ahzek Ahriman. Opening a portal through dimensions was nothing for him.

Ahriman took a step forward and forcibly shoved Ignis through. The spell broke. Ahriman followed his brother a second later. The portal closed just as the ritual site imploded…

And everything changed.

oOo

There we have it!

I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope it wasn't too hard to understand. For those that may not be familiar with some of these groups or fully understand what just happened, I'll give you the rundown:

Ahzek Ahriman, an extremely powerful sorcerer lord from Warhammer 40k, decided to cast a very powerful and complicated ritual spell known as the "Second Rubric of Ahriman" (before he does in cannon 40k, for those that are going to give me grief over timelines). However, this was interrupted by three extremely powerful time-altering events elsewhere (as is the nature of sorcerous rituals and the Warp of Warhammer 40k), thus resulting in…

Well, interesting things to come.

Stay tuned! I do appreciate any questions, comments, criticisms, concerns, and reviews!