Chapter 1: The Tear in the Sky
The Warp | Timeless
The sea of madness churned.
Colors that did not exist bled into one another, each shade screaming in languages older than time. The Warp was never silent, but tonight if such a thing as night could exist in that roiling ocean of thought and corruption - it boiled with purpose. The Cicatrix Maledictum yawned like an open wound across the Materium, bleeding unreality into all that was real.
And within that wound, they watched.
.
.
.
.
Four presences infinite, ancient, divine and profane hovered in council.
"Mortals grow arrogant again," hissed Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate, a thousand beaks snapping and whispering at once. His ever-changing form pulsed through impossible geometry, every word bending the air into fractal light. "The corpse-god clings to His throne while the galaxy burns. But the future trembles, oh yes it does... I see new patterns forming in the storm."
"Patterns?" boomed Khorne, the Blood God, his voice like the grind of rusted iron across bone. He sat upon a mountain of skulls that shifted with each heartbeat. Rivers of molten gore flowed beneath him, and each bubble that burst sang a war chant. "Speak plainly, changer. What blood do you see spilled?"
Tzeentch laughed, a sound like reality folding into itself. "Blood from beyond this realm. Heroes, champions, fools from another skein of existence. They will fall through the wound between worlds. They will fight... and in doing so, they will break the order of the galaxy."
"Hmph," rumbled Nurgle, his voice warm, almost tender, yet soaked in rot. The Plaguefather stirred in his garden, each breath releasing spores that fed a thousand lesser daemons. "Let them come then. Fresh hosts, ripe with the scent of other stars. My children grow hungry for new flesh."
From the void beside them came a sigh long, sensual, and cruel. Slaanesh leaned back upon a throne woven of pleasure and pain, her body shifting between male, female, and everything in between. Her smile could kill suns.
"How tedious you all are," she whispered. "Always war, always decay, always scheming. But what of beauty? What of temptation?"
Her finger traced the air, and the Warp itself trembled. In her wake danced visions of mortal men and women from another universe with hope and fear garbed in strange armor, faces bright
"There is one," she murmured, eyes glinting violet. "A red witch, her soul fractured by grief. She will sing for me when I call. She will break the veil herself."
Khorne snarled. "A witch? Bah! Bring me warriors, not singers."
"You'll have both, skull-lord," Slaanesh cooed. "For the Tear grows wider. The Warp does not choose — it hungers."
Tzeentch's many eyes flared open, like stars dying all at once. "The Tear opens now. And through it... the strangers fall."
The Warp screamed.
Light tore across the infinite expanse as the Cicatrix Maledictum convulsed. In that howling brilliance, six figures flickered - ghosts of another cosmos, drawn unwillingly into the storm.
A man of iron.
A beast of rage.
A soldier out of time.
A boy of webs and wonder.
A witch of chaos incarnate.
And a sorcerer who saw.
Doctor Stephen Strange stood at the edge of unreality, his cloak whipping in winds made of madness. His body burned with psychic pain, his soul struggling to anchor itself in a realm that devoured reason.
He saw the four gods' shapes in the storm, each promising a different form of oblivion.
And somewhere, deep beneath the Warp's laughter, he heard a whisper.
"Welcome, Sorcerer Supreme... to the Long War."
The Tear widened and the galaxy would never be the same again.
Doctor Strange felt his mind fracture. The veil between thought and flesh tore apart as the Warp's tides clawed at his consciousness. Time folded inward - every moment he'd ever lived collapsing into a single, searing instant. The Ancient One's voice, Christine's laughter, the smell of incense, the sound of his own heartbeat all became one scream.
He tried to focus. To remember Earth.
But there was no Earth.
Only the Warp.
A realm of raw thought. Emotion given form. A place where belief was not an idea but a weapon. And here, in this hellish dimension, Stephen Strange was naked. His spells faltered. His wards bled light. His mind, once a fortress — now trembled against the tide of screaming souls that surged around him.
Then, in the distance, he saw it — a throne of golden light, burning against the void. A figure upon it, vast and silent, shrouded by wings of radiant fire.
"The Emperor..." Strange whispered. He didn't know how he knew that name it simply was. Knowledge that bled into him from the Warp itself. "The corpse that rules mankind..."
The light flickered and in its shadow, the four watched.
"Do you see, sorcerer?" Tzeentch's laughter rippled through reality. "Even your vaunted wisdom cannot escape destiny. You have entered my realm."
Strange raised his hands, conjuring sigils that shimmered and shattered in the same breath. "No realm belongs to you, creature."
> "Creature?" purred Slaanesh, her voice echoing from every direction. "Oh, how deliciously naïve. You carry the scent of creation itself - the hunger, the guilt, the desire to fix what cannot be fixed. I could make you perfect, little mortal."
Strange closed his eyes. "You mistake discipline for weakness."
"And you mistake resistance for victory."
A thousand claws of thought scraped at his soul. Memories warped - faces stretched into grotesque imitations, voices twisted by temptation. He saw Christine smiling one moment... then her face split open, replaced by the void.
He screamed - not from fear, but defiance. His body burned with azure light as he drew upon every ounce of power within. The Eye of Agamotto pulsed like a heartbeat, ancient, divine, defiant.
The Warp recoiled. Even the gods paused, their laughter dimming into curious silence.
"Whatever this war is..." Strange said, voice steady despite the trembling in his bones, "I am not your pawn."
"Oh, but you already are," murmured Nurgle kindly. "All life decays, child. Even your courage will rot in time."
The Warp shuddered. A rift blacker than void - spiraled open beneath Strange's feet. It dragged him downward, reality folding into a thin thread of light. The last thing he saw before vanishing was Tzeentch's smile fracturing into a thousand shifting faces.
"Run, little sorcerer. The galaxy will welcome you soon enough."
And then silence.
Strange awoke gasping, lying upon a cold stone floor. Around him stretched an endless library, its shelves filled with tomes bound in human skin and alien metal. The symbols on the walls pulsed faintly not in magic, but in psionics.
A voice spoke from behind him - low, cautious, metallic.
"You speak as if the Warp listens," it said. "That makes you either suicidal... or interesting."
Strange turned. A hooded figure in black armor stood there, golden runes carved across the plating. His eyes burned like dying suns.
"Who are you?" Strange asked.
The man tilted his head. "A rogue psyker. Like you."
Then, softly, almost like a warning:
"Welcome to the 41st Millennium, Doctor Strange."