When The Fic Hits The Fan (fanfic one-shot/story collection)

[Strigoi Grey]

Mostly a collection of one-shots exploring "What if...?" scenarios for series I like, though arcs are also possible.

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Introduction: So what's this all about, anyway?

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Disclaimer: the acronym for the title might or might not be your reaction while reading this. I don't make any guarantees for your sanity; I can barely guarantee mine. Also, I don't own any of the stories involved here. Do you think I'd be here if I did?

Ahem...so, I was originally planning to post this, and the crossover collection, after I finished at least the main plotline for my original fantasy story, The Scholar's Tale. But, due to how long that is taking, in terms of both writing ST and my other projects and irl stuff, I decided, why not go ahead? It's not like I have a planned storyline to advance (yet). On that note, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update, but I'll try to do so at least as often as I get an idea.

Chapter suggestions are welcome, but I can't guarantee I'll turn them into chapters. I probably won't know every series people will bring up and, to be blunt, if someone brings up a series I don't like for me to write about, I probably won't force myself to do it.

Note:, despite the jokey title and introduction, this isn't meant to be (entirely) a comedy story collection.

Currently planned chapters:

-Pocket Monsters: Trazyn the Infinite entering a phase of capturing dangerous beings in Tesseract Labyrinths in order to throw them at people use them in battle (and because they're neat); (Warhammer 40,000); (Pokemon references, not a Pokemon crossover. There are no crossovers in Ba Sing Se this thread);

-Trifecta: What if John Taylor and Eddie Drood met Owen Deathstalker at the Adventurers' Club in the Nightside? (undecided on the time period, but post-Daemons Are Forever, so that Eddie has already met Giles Deathstalker); (Greenverse: Deathstalker, Nightside and Secret Histories);

-Chipped Cog; Whatever is Yuji doing post-EOS? (Jujutsu Kaisen);

[Strigoi Grey]

The Books (Warhammer 40,000; parody/crack)

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AN: Did you know that (to my knowledge, at least) Leman Russ has written the most books out of the Primarchs? He apparently has a series with at least twenty-one volumes, another with at least fourteen, and at least one unrelated book. For some related quotes, see his Lexicanum page.

Magnus, the guy you'd expect to be known for that, has the Book named after him as his claim to fame. It's...funny.

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Ahzek Ahriman, once heir of the Achaemenid Empire, First Captain of his Legion, almost jumped as he heard his father's eye snap open.

Abrupt as it had been, no mortal would've caught it; but Ahzek was Astartes, and one of the most skilled users of Warpcraft among his brothers besides. In fact, only his father surpassed him when it came to the Art.

Said father was staring into space at the moment, looking poleaxed (and that was something Ahriman was familiar with, though last time Magnus had taken a power halberd to the face, during a gruelling Compliance, he'd looked more composed). He had been sitting on the floor of the Sanctum that bore his name, the metaphorical heart of the Photep, a golden sun under him. His arms, crossed under his chest in meditation, were now slack, the Primarch's hands on his knees.

He clenched them. Turned to look at Ahriman.

The Captain, despite the aura of disbelieving exasperation radiating from his Primarch, kept his footing, and met his father's gaze as Magnus' features settled into a flat expression.

'That mangy barbarian played us all,' the Crimson King declared, biting out each word.

Ahriman was not one to let surprise show, when he could help it. 'Sire?'

Magnus shook his head, his mane of red hair twisting as he rose and began pacing the length of the Sanctum. 'Don't you understand, Ahzek? It's all been a smokescreen, since the start of the Crusade. All that...Feral World cretin behaviour. A deception.'

Ah. He was talking about the Wolf King. Not a brother the Cyclops loved much. 'How has Lord Russ deceived you, my Lord?'

'Deceived us all,' Magnus corrected, not looking at his son. 'Besides, perhaps, our father.' Ahzek saw his eye widen, go from copper to gold. 'This might all have been a test. To see if I could see beyond appearances and my misgivings, and...' He shook his head again, muttered.

Then stopped. 'My son. I have recently heard of a book series meant to educate Imperial Commanders, appropriately,' he looked sickened as he said the word, 'Meditations on Imperial Command. I have not read them myself, yet, since I have had other volumes to occupy my time, but I have just heard of the author.' He had, the Primarch meant, heard it across the ship, with his bodily or subtler senses. 'Now, when I heard about the series' title, I thought that maybe Roboute had written them. Or Rogal. Malcador, maybe. Or even the Emperor, beloved by all. Men known for such things.'

Ahzek nodded carefully. 'Primarch Russ does not come to mind when one thinks of prolific authors,' he remarked.

'Exactly. That's his point!' Magnus exclaimed, then began explaining. 'He knows many within the Imperium see him as an unwashed savage, an image he does little to counter and much to encourage. For,' Magnus rolled his eye, 'the military value.'

The Sixth Legion did appear to be bullheaded primitives to those who did not know them, but Ahriman remembered his recent encounter with the Space Wolf Primarch. He had talked like a genius imitating a savage. 'Ah,' the Space Marine said. 'And to...keep attention off his writings until they are released?'

Magnus looked at him like he'd called Curze sane. 'What? No. It's not like anyone would expect that - why should they? And that's the rub.' Magnus put the fingers of one hand together. 'Ahzek, that savage is trying to show me up using my passions.'

What? 'My Lord, I don't think-'

'No, no, don't you see, Ahriman? It's camouflage - that buffoonish manner he affects, those ridiculous wolf pelts he and his sons wear, like some hunters out of Old Earth's prehistory. It's all meant to deflect attention, from these taunts of his he thinks subtle, I mean. Taunts directed at me.'

The Primarch was looming over him now. He had a way of doing that, could grow to dwarf Titans, but even if he'd been the size of a baseline man, Ahzek would've felt tempted to look up. 'Leman Russ,' the Fifteenth Primarch said stiffly, 'has written tens of widely-perused volumes, all under my nose. And I never noticed, because I was too busy sneering at how stupid he acts!'

'Sire, I-' Ahriman stumbled as Magnus' glare dared him to contradict his words. 'That is, I don't think that was his intention. Taunting you - I do not think your brother is trying to surpass you as an author.' The Lord of Winter and War usually disparaged his brother's scholarly and sorcerous ways, but he hadn't brought up the Book of Magnus as a stepping stone, something to beat. 'I think he simply...enjoys writing, my Primarch. And is perhaps trying to educate the Imperial elites. Maybe even redeem his reputation as a brutish warlord.'

Magnus stared down at him, eye shifting through a rainbow of colours. Where the other would have been was sometimes smooth flesh, other times a puckered scar, as the Primarch's moods took him, was now a ragged socket, as if something taloned has just torn out the eye, though no blood flowed. 'You might be right, at that,' Magnus murmured. 'You might be right. He's going to leave me behind, at this rate. He already has!'

That was the beginning of Magnus the Red's period of isolation, during which he penned several thousand volumes pertaining to all pursuits of Imperial society, from civilian and military command at all levels to sewing, gardening, animal husbandry, engineering and more besides. He, Magnus had vowed, would not be surpassed by an author whose contributions to society were done out of spite, rather than a love of knowledge.

Ahriman was the one who had to explain it to his brothers, a task he wouldn't have envied had it fallen to anyone else. They took it as gracefully as could be expected, though Ahriman did not appreciate the greater responsibilities as acting Legion Master, nor the sidelong glances his brothers sent him. As a close confidante of the Primarch and a powerful future seer, they'd expected him to see it coming.

While Primarchs did not require much rest or sustenance, if any, for they were of the Great Ocean as much as the Materium, there were still people who wanted or needed to see Magnus, though they got used to dealing with Ahriman, out of necessity.

Once, Lorgar Aurelian, standing in the doorway to the Cyclops' writing room, joked that maybe he should take a break from crusading and put something to paper as well.

Magnus looked up enough to scowl at him, and say, 'He's going to leave you in the dust too, Lorgar.'

The Urizen, who had apparently come to share something "eye-opening" with his brother, had to be escorted away, with all due politeness - and haste. Given Magnus' current mood, he wouldn't welcome distractions.

With Magnus deep into his work, when the Flesh Change returned, he asked his father to place the Thousand Sons in stasis or any other method of quarantine he felt was best, until a solution could be found. During this period, the Primarch wrote a book about Warp afflictions, psychic and physical.

Eventually, with the Emperor's plan entering its next phase, it was time for Magnus to sit the Golden Throne, his spirit flying unbound above the tides of the Othersea while new-generation ships plied the recently-opened Imperial Webway.

The Primarch had to be all but dragged from his writings, and who better than one of his brothers to do that?

'You did this!' Magnus accused halfheartedly as he and Leman Russ walked up the steps leading to the Throne. 'You planned for me to become ensconced within my chambers, so you could write who knows what else, before I could finish everything I had planned and publish them. And now I won't be able to write anything anymore-'

Russ grunted. 'Magnus, what the Hel are you talking about?' And pushed his brother into the Throne.

The Crimson King, it had to be said, took to his new role with aplomb: it was, after all, as close to a perfect life as a psyker could get. And the Emperor was always close, in body and mind, to speak with him. Efforts were being made to give the Thousand Sons new, better bodies, and the possiblity of raising a new Legion if nothing worked was mentioned. Magnus grimly told his father to do everything he had to, and returned to his tasks: the Imperial Webway was a marvellous accomplishment, but the Golden Throne required a powerful psyker to operate and thus allow access to the otherworldly labyrinth, at least until improvements could be made.

All in all, Magnus was quite content with his lot. And if some carefully laid plans had been unravelled on the way, well, such was life.

That is not to say that, on the day Leman Russ happened by, to leave his brother a copy of his newest volume, which explored how people's self-styled, jealous rivals cut themselves off from the world in order to win competitions only they perceived, the Crimson King took it well.

But all claims that he screamed are baseless slander. The function of the Golden Throne required all his attention, after all.

(The book quickly spread across the galaxy. The Primarch Perturabo, while irritated by the concept in ways he did not deign to explain, took the message to heart and devoted himself to civilian architecture after the Great Crusade was over, becoming renowned for his ability to mix form and function. The Lord of Iron often claimed such praises were empty flattery meant to gain his favour, but he did not ask people to stop.)