“Why do we have a room for this?” Rave groaned, watching John retrieve his Ultramarines from their vitrine. Like every other army, they were neatly stacked inside their own glass tower. They were sorted by size (and point cost) from the bottom up. The entire back wall of the room was taken up by vitrines like that.

In the middle was a medium sized table - big, but not so big the middle of it was difficult to reach. The top of it had a wooden frame running around the edges and the surface was covered in a green cloth. More vitrines at the left and right walls held all kinds of board pieces, statues, rubble, fallen spaceships, and other such things.

“You get a gym, I get a wargaming room, it’s only fair,” John responded, a bit more gleeful than he perhaps should have been. Something about the extreme aversion his girlfriend had to Warhammer just made it that much more enticing to play. Whatever entity had made it so people received a kick out of teasing their loved ones was a sadistic genius.

“Ya get my ass being gorgeous out of the gym, and if Nia…,” the Lightbearer pointed at the blonde as she scanned through one of the rulebooks, “…has success with the training, she will also have a nice and shapely butt. What do I get out of ya having this room?” Her agitation collapsed into a long sigh. “A reminder that I am dating a total nerd.”

“Cry into your piles of money, woman,” Elu croaked her way into the conversation. It was the scolding tone of a friendly grandmother, simultaneously impossible to be mad at and drilling in by the sheer authority of age. Like usual, her white hair was bound up into a singular knot, held by two crossing pins that had the shape of arrows. Similarly, she refused to wear Fusion’s military uniform and kept to her loosely fitting clothes of light leather, with a few feather decorations adding to her tribal look. “Men always have weird hobbies, it’s why they die earlier.” Her tanned, wrinkly face was dominated by a smile.

“I don’t have weird hobbies,” Ted declared. It may have been meant as a simple protest to keep the conversation rolling, but his stoic tone made it sound so much more like a statement. It didn’t help that the dark haired, dark eyed man was standing straight in his dark, greyish uniform as if he was about to address a Roman legion. It also didn’t help that he was taller than everyone else in the room, albeit not much taller than John.

“Well…” Chemilia, his wife and fellow general of Fusion’s forces, started and tapped one finger against her chin. She had pink hair of a noticeably lighter shade than Rave’s and was herself a gorgeous woman of European descent. A claimed one that John tried not to ogle too much. “…there is this thing you do, going bouldering.”

“Bouldering?” John asked.

“It’s like climbing, but on large rocks instead of mountainsides,” Chemilia explained in a matter of fact tone. She was more charismatic than her husband in her demeanour, but they were definitely carved from the same material. “Also, those indoor climbing walls.”

“It is not weird,” Ted asserted.

“It’s a bit niche, but I don’t think it’s weird either,” John agreed. If it would have been all that weird, there wouldn’t have been so many places offering services of that nature. Climbing was a thing people just liked to do.

Rave was of the same mind, “That sounds like fun, maybe we should go do something like that sometime? Find a really tall rock and just go up it.”

“Hmm, maybe.” John didn’t see that big of an appeal in it, but making it a date could have alleviated his fundamental disinterest in sports.

“You’re only hesitating ‘cause ya know ya would be worse at it than me,” his girlfriend pointed out.

“Maybe,” flippantly, the Gamer answered. “Anyway, Ted, if you have time, you should come along with Max, Magnus and me next time we go out. You can share some stories.” Pulling more people into the guy’s nights out sounded like a generally good idea. There was no doubt in John’s mind that he and Maximillian would remain the heart of whatever party they attended, they were just more talkative, charismatic and good looking than the average guy, but having a few more close guy friends would put a bit more life in the room.

Although Ted hadn’t attended last time, there was always another meeting. Since John knew the corrupting tendrils of his debauched lifestyle had influenced the two generals as well, he thought that the general would appreciate a night out in the Little Whirl and other establishments as well. Personally, he was more feeling something a little less perverted and a little more gentlemanly next time anyway.

“I’ll consider it,” Ted responded as straightforwardly as he always did. If nothing else, John was pretty sure he and Magnus would get along.

Elu, in the meantime, had inspected all of the armies more closely. “When you invited us to do wargaming, I didn’t think it would be with sci-fi figures.” The elderly woman giggled a little bit. “I remember when that genre started to pick up steam. Times keep changing.”

“We can do traditional wargaming, but I thought Warhammer serves as a better simile to Abyssal combat, given how unequal different kinds of units are- Nia!” John suddenly shouted, seeing which vitrine the pariah was opening. “You are NOT playing Iron Warriors!”

“Why not?” Nia wanted to know, but stayed her hand. The blonde was one of the people John had played against before and, aside from himself, the only one present properly aware of the rulebook. As for the three generals of Fusion, John had sent them the PDF beforehand, but they had never played it before and reading all of the rules without the practical application meant they weren’t really into the subject matter.

“Because they’re still overpowered as all hell, you powergamer,” John told her.

Nia stared, frozen in place and position. It didn’t even look like she had a pulse, so complete was her motionless state that not even her hand quivered. What set her apart from a lifelike wax figure was the awake glint in her blue eyes, set in a blank expression or not. She blinked, the frozen moment was broken. “I win with them.”

“Most people would, takes little skill with that faction.”

“That makes them the logical choice.”

“It’s about as logical as entering a martial arts tournament with a gun and then declaring to be the victor after shooting everyone else.” John crossed his arms in defiance and got a slightly puzzled expression in response. After a few moments, John realized where the blank’s confusion lay. “A mundane martial arts tournament,” he specified since Abyssal ones would make guns a fair bit less effective.

Nia pondered about that for a little bit, only delivering the answer when she had thought it through, “Maybe the other fighters should have brought guns instead of complaining that someone else used the best tool available.” Rave snorted and the rest of the room, even Ted, followed suit in voicing some level of amusement. Not minding, Nia just continued, “For your analogy to make sense, it is required that guns were allowed in that tournament. Iron Warriors are part of the rules. Anyone who doesn’t use the most effective means to win at their disposal has no right to complain when they lose.”

“We’re playing for fun,” John pushed back.

“I thought we played to sharpen tactical instincts.”

“We can do both.”

“I value utility over entertainment.”

“Iron Warriors are banned and that’s it,” John finally put an end to the discussion by making a definitive statement. Audibly blowing air out of her nose and pouting, Nia closed the vitrine and stepped back. Immediately weakened by seeing one of his women upset, John went into a consolatory mood. “You’re fundamentally right, but whoever wrote those rules didn’t do the balancing well and I want to simulate some relatively equal battles. Warfare is seldom balanced, but for today’s exercise, that’s what we should go with.”

“Understood. Should we play the exact same armies then?” Nia asked, slight curiosity swinging in her mostly calm tone.

“I suppose that would work the best.” John nodded and looked over to the three generals. “You lot want to join immediately or do you want to watch us play the first round to get a better grasp on the rules?”

“I’ll watch,” Elu responded almost immediately, taking a chair and plopping himself down on it. “I played games like this in the past, but I have to say I was never too much of a strategist anyway.”

“Large scale strategy isn’t my forte either,” Ted mumbled and looked to his wife.

“Fuck it, I’m down.” Chemilia stretched her neck as she walked up to the table. “I’m not as good at it as you are, John, but I can put up a fight.”

“Small armies, for a first round, then,” John stated.

“Small meaning that this game will only take three hours instead of forty,” Rave complained.

“You know you can leave, right?” the Gamer asked and pointed at the door.

“But how would I poke fun at ya if I’m not around?” she shot right back, pouncing right into their usual playfighting routine.

“You wouldn’t, that’s the point.” After a second, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in an overly dramatic fashion. “But then I don’t get to look at your beautiful face, what a dilemma. Maybe I should get you muted?”

“Don’t think they offer those kinds of services anywhere.”

“Strange, really, you would think men figured out how to improve their girlfriends by now.”

“Ya saying I would be improved if I was mute?”

“Maybe.”

“No moaning or singing or sweet nothings in the morning? Having to get all your bantering needs covered by your guy friends?”

“…I rescind what I thoughtlessly stated, please forgive me,” John bowed his head.

Rave waved him closer with a wink of her finger. “Only if ya kiss me,” she cheekily replied, and John wandered over to fulfil that condition. “Ya would think women would have improved their boyfriends by always making them more submissive,” she whispered.

“Says the girl that always insisted I assert myself,” John answered. “But I suppose I could go back to being a wimp and just put down this entire state-building, world-changing and ass-spanking I like to do. I’ll just laze around all day, lose all my muscles and be a couch potato.”

“…I rescind what I thoughtlessly stated, please forgive me,” Rave echoed him, first with played desperation, then a giggle. Picking her up, John kissed her like a princess he had just rescued from a dragon. “Good tiger,” she purred afterwards.

John put her back down when Nia tugged at his sleeve to get his attention. He kept things short and sweet, since they had guests and he wanted to keep his indulgences to the sensible minimum. Afterwards, they picked up a small Imperial Army and began placing the landscape. The look of the tabletop changed to match better with whatever pieces were put on it. A statue caused surrounding green cloth to mimic the grey stone of the socket, a destroyed vehicle spread around itself the appearance of a crater, half ruined buildings inspired similarly ruined streets, and so on.

It was a slow change, like watching a viscous fluid spread over a clean surface, and it only switched colours, not texture. Even that much cost quite a lot and had to be specifically tuned to what John had asked for. Mimic-cloth wasn’t cheap or easy to produce.

Once all the pieces were in place, they positioned their armies. “What do you say, Nia, do we team up to take John out first?” Chemilia asked immediately.

John just coolly looked first at her, then at Nia. This course of action was something he had anticipated. Them ganging up on him was a worthwhile strategy; given that he was the most intelligent and experienced out of the three, it was the smart decision to make in most circumstances.

Regardless, Nia shook her head at a speed that made it clear she had thought this through already. To get an idea as to what was going on inside her head, John used Observe.

He learned just about nothing and earned himself a stare by the pariah, who had noticed. There was a slight change in the air. Likely, she had conjured some of her more basic powers to block further such intrusions. “I have my strategy,” Nia announced.

“Alright then,” Chemilia responded in a slightly strained tone. Unlike John, she wasn’t used to Nia’s alien aura and involuntarily stepped away as far as she could, without getting out of reach of her figures. Even Elu in her chair shifted uncomfortably. Ted, Chemilia and Elu, they were all staring at her like a mutated blob of flesh that had crawled its way out of their nightmares. All of that with Nia using just a bit of her power. She had definitely gotten a lot stronger since he had last seen her.

‘Smarter too,’ the Gamer thought, somewhat surprised that Nia had managed to gain about 30 Intelligence. ‘Probably because she got more life experience. She always had a pretty practical mindset, but what she applied it to was a bit odd. Battles aside.’

Rave must have seen the tension in the room, as she suddenly spoke up, “How’re the artificial limbs doing?”

The sudden question managed to pull the generals out of their trance. “Pretty good,” Chemilia responded, moving her right leg around a little bit. If he listened really carefully, John’s superhuman hearing could pick up the tiniest sounds of machine parts whirring. Otherwise, it was indistinguishable from a regular leg. Same went for Ted’s left arm, covered mostly by the sleeve of his uniform, and an illusionary layer hiding the rest. “We had enough time to get used to them now. Using martial arts through them is still a bit iffy, but generally it works.”

“Training has been painful,” Ted remarked, making and opening a fist. “Very painful.”

“In terms of money or actual pain?” John asked, as he did his first turn. Given the size of the board, they would take some time simply positioning themselves. He moved his more important or less enduring units around the side, while putting high defence and cannon fodder figures out towards the centre.

Since they were all playing the same army, the question of the battle was, fundamentally, who would be ground to dust first and how many important pieces each of the two remaining factions would have by the end of it to throw at each other. To that end, John wanted to have a brawl in the middle and try to have Nia and Chemilia clash with each other by trying to utilize the same cover spots.

Nia didn’t play along with that, moving her entire army down the side towards John’s more valuable pieces. Neither of them was in engagement range yet, so the turn ended with just positioning.

“Both,” Chemilia answered. “Your mechanic really likes to bleed people dry, you know that?”

“You can say her name, Elu knows about Scarlett,” John informed them. It was becoming more and more of an open secret and they were floating the idea of leaking the truth themselves whenever there was a particularly scandal free period. Just some rumours at first, slowly ramping it up so the outrage would be diminished by the amount of people that had already gotten over it. The counterpoint to this was that many of their enemies were still unaware of Scarlett and that was an advantage they shouldn’t lose so easily. “To the point, she likes money and you’re walking around with state of the art arcano-tech limbs she gave you for free. That aside, I pay most of it through insurance.”

“Fair enough, it’s still less than pleasant to have them re-attached after they get fixed.” Chemilia shivered. Connecting these limbs caused all of the nerves in the area and all of the circuitry simulating nerves inside the arm to fire all at once to properly linked. This was an excruciatingly painful experience.

Since incorrectly applied martial arts caused some internal injuries that not even machinery was immune to, the limbs had to be removed entirely to be fixed in detail. At least John doubted that Scarlett would force them to take them off if it wasn’t necessary. The Technomancer wasn’t the type of person to waste anyone’s time.

“You can go on, I skip my turn,” Chemilia gestured in John’s direction.

‘Well, if two idiots are fighting, it’s smartest to just stand aside and let them,’ John commented on her decision and thought about his turn. After some deliberation about the how, he moved in Chemilia’s general direction but also kept his defensive lines closed. While he couldn’t let the pink-haired general get away with not getting involved in the fight, he also couldn’t afford to open his flank to Nia.

Along the same lines, Nia backed off from her aggressive approach on John’s lines and also moved her troops in Chemilia’s general direction. Clicking her tongue, the pink-haired general then looked around. By doing nothing, she had made herself the target and was now being threatened by ending up in a pincer movement. Rather than just stay where she was, she moved her troops to take up camp in a triangle around the centre of the board. It would take her two turns to get most and three to get all of her troops there. While that meant that both Nia and John could get some chipping damage in on her, it was the best position to have, if it came to a three-way brawl.