Two Blood Bowl players find themselves briefly in 40k, and a Genestealer ends up in their match

Context: In the Blood Bowl reality, a match of Dungeon Bowl between the Bright Crusaders and the Champions of Death has an interesting twist: both teams don't actually know where the opponents' end zone is, and they are being transported from their own endzones into the heart of the dungeon by the spells cast by wizards from the Colleges of Magic (drawing on the Winds of Magic from the Realm of Chaos, i.e. the Warp).

As might be expected, things don't go according to plan, and magical shenanigans ensue - including the appearance in the Blood Bowl match of a mysterious "player" with four arms... which befuddles the Blood Bowl commentators Jim and Bob:

There was a teleport pad just ahead. The Crusader was making for it with blinding speed.

No you don’t, Ramtut thought, and made a desperate leap to tackle.

The teleport pad seemed to explode.

The conclave invoked by the College of Magic would eventually pronounce that the overload was inevitable. The skeletons poured into the dungeon too quickly for the teleport pads to accommodate them all. The critical point was reached when there was a skeleton arriving on every pad. The chain reaction began. Every pad attempted to transmit, but no location was receiving. The feedback loop of energy lit the entire dungeon with shrieking blue lightning.

Ramtut caught Sternright around the legs. They tumbled onto the pad together, into blazing, convulsed magic and a shifting kaleidoscope of confused skeletons. The dungeon disappeared in a searing flash. Ramtut tumbled through an eruption of non-light and howling colours. Space lost all meaning. Something tore.

And then…

Ramtut and Sternright dropped onto the peak of a huge structure. Ramtut looked around, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, and failing. They were in an inconceivably vast city, whose structures were impossibly tall. The city was at war. Bursts of unimaginable power shattered buildings. Huge engines of war, larger than any dragon, flew through the air, unleashing cataclysm. Swarms of towering, all-devouring monsters attacked walking metal mountains. And…

And…

Were those pyramids? Pyramids larger than any Ramtut had seen with living eyes.

Flying pyramids?

In the midst of incomprehensibly vast conflict, of war and war and war raging to the horizon and filling the skies, Ramtut found himself thinking, Now this is more like it.

Sternright was standing still, mindless with shock. His jaw was wide open, and slack. A string of drool fell from his chin to his chest. His arms were hanging limply at his side and he had dropped the ball.

Ramtut heard a sound like a tide snarling. He looked down and saw a swarm of creatures climbing the façade of the building towards them. They were about the size of a man, but had four hideously clawed arms. Bony structures like spinal columns rose from their carapaces. Their elongated, violet-hued heads gaped ravenously, serpentine tongues tasting the air.

‘What what what what…’ Sternright was saying.

The centre of the rooftop began to crackle with light again. The sorcerous vortex spun. Ramtut knew better than to second-guess the possible exit. There were glories in this place, but he could not remain here. He picked up the ball and turned to go.

Sternright did not move. The terrors of this world had broken him.

Ramtut sighed. He grabbed the Crusader by the scruff of the neck and hauled him towards the light. As he did, the first of the monsters reached the roof. It lunged at them. Ramtut leapt back and pushed Sternright away. The beast’s jump carried it between them. One of the elongated claws of its forelimbs sank into the ball and yanked it out of Ramtut’s hand. The monster tumbled into the vortex and vanished.

The storm of magic convulsed, sending sorcerous fireballs in all directions. It was about to disintegrate.

A horde of monsters clambered over the parapets.

‘Come on!’ Ramtut yelled at Sternright, grabbing him again and running into the maelstrom.

‘And we’re back. CabalVision and the College of Magic wish to apologise to viewers for the technical dif iculties, but it looks like we have eyes on the game again, Bob, and… and…. uh…’

‘Jim, what is that?’

‘I… I’m at a bit of a loss, Bob. I can tell you that there are no records for any player matching that description.’

‘Well it has the ball and look at it go! It’s tearing through the opposition like nobody’s business! It’s pounding through the skeletons like they’re not even there! The clean-up teams are going to have a lot of smashed bones to pick up when this is done. Gotta say, though, Jim, it sure doesn’t look like your typical Bright Crusaders player.’

‘It doesn’t, Bob, and… Ah. Well, it looks like it isn’t one of the Champions of Death either.’

‘Nope.’

‘It will be of small comfort to Harald Goodstar, but his was the most ef icient decapitation I’ve seen in a score of championships.’

‘What a move, Jim! I’m telling you, if we’d had that player as a ringer back in my day…’

‘I can well believe it, Bob. Meanwhile, there’s still no sign of the star players for both teams and this mysterious new player is on a rampage.’

‘That’s no metaphor, Jim.’

‘No, and the ball has seen better days, too.’

‘It’s just a flapping pig’s bladder now.’

‘Please, Bob, a deflation scandal is the last thing we need to think about right now. The ball is, still, technically in play, even if we don’t know for whom. And now the player is barrelling south, and…’

‘I don’t believe it, Jim.’

‘Neither do I, Bob, but that’s an end zone!’

‘Whose?’

‘We still don’t know, and I guess we won’t until both have been revealed.’

‘Is it going to cross the line?’

‘It is, Bob! It is! AND IT HAS! TOUCHDOWN! I think! And–’

‘Ouch. Wow, that was bright.’

‘I’m a little dazzled, but the player seems to be gone.’

‘I don’t think those tremors are supposed to be happening, Jim.’

Greezing was making his way towards Hallic’s portcullis through a warren of crevasses in the temple ceiling. He was just north of the central chamber when there was second furious blast of light throughout the dungeon. The teleport pads exploded, and the tunnels began to shake. Greezing fell from his place of concealment in the ceiling. He tried to get to his feet, but fell as the floor cracked and heaved. This was all going wrong. The Bright Crusaders had been savaged by whatever that thing was that had come through, but everyone was so confused that Greezing’s strategy was a shambles.

He stumbled down the tunnel, surrounded by a mob of panicked skeletons. Femurs knocked him back and forth and he squinted against the explosive magical discharges. There was no point hiding now. He headed in the direction of centre field, hoping against hope he would not be noticed in the sea of clacking bone and could make one last attempt against the Bright Crusaders.

He was almost there when Sternright and Ramtut dropped out of the air in front of him. There was crack of thunder, and the blasts of magic stopped.

The tremors did not, though.

On Greezing’s right, the cracks in the walls widened. A blizzard of dust fell from the ceiling. The rotten bricks crumbled, and the walls began to fall.

‘Bob, I’ve just been informed that the creature’s touchdown has been ruled invalid because it was not clear whose team it would count for. There’s also some odd language here about it not being clear whose end zone that was.’

‘You’d think the referees should know that, Jim.’

‘Be that as it may, Bob, the game is still on, and a new ball is in play!’

‘With a playing field undergoing total collapse! Exciting times, Jim!’

‘I couldn’t agree more, Bob.’

David Annandale, 'The Skeleton Key' in Death on the Pitch: A Blood Bowl Anthology (2018), pp. 55-56.

And people say that there are no clear links between GW's various settings...