In some ways, the games store reminded Trinitite of the library. The scent of paper, or perhaps material made of similar components, met the abyssal as Alex opened the door. When she entered the building fully, the sight of shelves packed with colorfully decorated items met her, many of them resting on their sides so their labels could be read like that of a book. Beyond that, chairs and tables filled another section of the building.

That's where the similarities stopped, however.

"Alright," A human at one of the tables started, his voice rising far above what she'd ever heard at the library, "what, exactly, about that is 'stupid?'"

"It doesn't make any narrative sense!" A second human voice replied in a slightly higher pitch, "In 40k, the souls of the dead go into the warp and get corrupted or eaten or whatever. Obviously, that isn't the case for today's shipgirls. Maybe they could have existed in-universe before Slaanesh showed up, but after the great rift?"

The passionate argument was far too loud for anything she'd heard in a library, and while the context was completely beyond her, she recognized a few words, kinda. 'Demons' was something she'd heard her own kind called a few times on the radio, but the pronunciation didn't seem quite the same and she hadn't really managed to glean its meaning from the broadcasts.

"They could just be pro-human daemons," The second man tempered, "like that one you talked about that threatened to execute that sniper." Considering it must be about one of these fantasies, Trinitite didn't feel inclined to pay much attention to the conversation. However, Alex was hurrying in the direction of the voices, so instead of inspecting the colorfully-decorated boxes that filled this part of the building, she followed and listened.

"Daemons are a fragment of a chaos god's will. Shipgirls clearly aren't, but you're missing the point." The source of voices was revealed as they approached, appearing from behind a lavishly-decorated shelf as Alex and herself hurried into the second portion of the building. The speaker's eyes were partially obscured behind a pair of glasses, as he waved over the 'army' on his side of the table. "The Guard's all about combined arms, having a lot of specialized but capable units working together. Even if she can't use most of her weapons, strength and durability alone mean a shipgirl would eat all the points in your army!"

Said 'Guard' almost looked like a collection of fairies, if they'd been shrunken down slightly, thinned to the proportions of regular humans, and frozen in serious-looking poses. As she approached, she recognized the human-facsimiles as carrying rifles and wearing mottled, dark clothing along under capes decorated in a pattern she now recognized as camouflage. They were supposed to represent some kind of marines, then. When it came to the identity of the forces across from them, however, she didn't have a clue.

"Why do you think they'd be a part of the Guard?" The second human asked, motioning to his army. They seemed a lot closer to the size of her fairies, but she had no idea what they were supposed to be. She hadn't understood why the British wore red during her brief encounters with the revolutionary war on Wikipedia, and she didn't understand why this army would wear red either, but again, she wasn't an expert on land combat. They appeared to have several animals with them she might classify as some sort of rigging, but they clearly weren't shipgirls. Also, they appeared to have horns and spikes all over their armor, which was something she'd excuse on an abyssal princess but couldn't understand on a human. "Plenty of ships get corrupted by Chaos, after all."

"That's not-" The glasses-wearing human replied, brushing a stressed hand through dark, rough hair before his gaze caught on the newcomers and the argument was forgotten. "Oh, hey Alex!"

At his greeting, the second human turned, his wide shoulders pivoting as his rangefinders skidded past Alex to settle on her. Before they could introduce themselves, he straightened, pointing directly at her and shouting:

"You!"

The Wo-class recoiled. A part of her panicked at her possibly being instantly discovered, but constant practice in retaining her disguise through the constant false-alarms she'd been through allowed her to disguise the jump as mere surprise.

"Ye- Yeah?"

"Should Geedubs add shipgirls to 40k?"

Trinitite blinked. Did he just assume she knew something about a fantasy? Something that didn't exist, and therefore where her own knowledge didn't really apply? Her mouth gaped open for a moment, before she quickly closed it, hoping no one noticed her sharper teeth and gray tongue. Finally, she decided the easiest answer to the question would be another question.

"Who?"

"Games Workshop!" He clarified, seemingly unsurprised at her lack of knowledge. Why would he ask, then? "You know, the makers of…" He waved his hand over the table again. "...this."

"I don't know…" Trinitite replied, suddenly realizing the human's tactic: get the intuition of an average human as a way to back up his argument. Trinitite was about as far from an 'average human' as that could be, but she guessed she'd done a passible job at pretending to be one so far. Might as well give it a shot.

"Well, shipgirls do exist here, so I don't see why they wouldn't in…" She looked again at the table, once again trying to decode what the red-clad figures were supposed to be. "...this."

"Exactly!" He shouted, as if the opinion the Wo-Class had come up in a half-second was worth anything. His opponent slouched forwards, gripping his forehead in an expression of exasperation Trinitite had seen in many an abyssal princess.

"Look, I'm sure…" he trailed off, eyes widening as he straightened. "...what's your name?"

"This is Sarah." Alex stepped in, taking the opportunity to introduce the abyssal. "Sarah, this is Cameron…" He pointed towards the smug-looking human who'd shouted that silly question at her. He nodded, smiling at her. "...and this is Dustin." He pointed back to the shorter, thinner man.

"Nice to meet you, Sarah." Cameron said, smiling.

"Yeah, nice to meet you." His supposed opponent followed, nodding with a much more subdued smile.

"It's nice to meet you two as well." Trinitite replied, repeating the line no matter how dishonest it was. She'd just met these two humans, after all. How 'nice' it was to meet them was something she still hadn't determined yet. In the usual greeting, she stepped forwards, raising a hand for the usual handshake.

A moment passed, and the Wo-class could read confusion on Cameron's face. Had she not been supposed to offer a handshake here? What about this time made it inappropriate to offer a handshake? Deep, why were human interactions so complicated!

Thankfully, Cameron took the offered hand anyways, allowing Trinitite to distract herself by making sure she squeezed his hand slightly, without overusing her strength. Judging by the fact the friendly expression on his face hadn't seemed to have changed, she seemed to be improving. Confident, she accepted the hand Dustin offered, her gloved hand wrapping around his in a loose but firm grip.

"So, as I was saying," Dustin spoke up again, nodding at her. "I'm sure Sarah is pretty knowledgeable about a lot of things, but the 40k universe is not one of them." As he spoke, he continued to look at Trinitite. The abyssal nodded, and his attention returned to Cameron. "Besides, that wasn't a 'that sounds cool' response, it was a 'sure, why not' response. If Games Workshop is going to be making a line of shipgirls, then they'd definitely be aiming for the former, and I haven't really heard that enthusiasm from anyone else talking about this. I bet you're only arguing for it to annoy me…"

She didn't really care beyond that point. Movement in the corner of the abyssal's vision indicated that Alex was leaving the two to argue, setting his army box down on another table. Opposite of him was a third human male, a timid smile gracing his rounded features as he gave Trinitite a quick nod.

"You bring those space marines, Vergil?" Alex asked, popping the box open and removing some of the miniature replicas. To the abyssal's annoyance, these ones were also wearing red, although it merely highlighted their metallic-gray armor instead of covering it completely. In some ways, it reminded her of those garish red circles on the carriers who'd attacked Bikini, and she hadn't really understood the logic behind those, either.

"No, not enough of them were completely painted." The human named 'Vergil' shook his head. "Your Cog Boys will have to face the Tau gunline alone." He reached into his own box and produced a similarly-sized figure, painted in the mottled tan. Trinitite recognized from images of desert combat she'd seen in her research, meaning that despite wanting Alex to do well in this simulated battle, she had to admit his opponent seemed more sensible. "Hello, by the way." That last part was directed towards her, and since he didn't seem to be going for a handshake, the abyssal settled on nodding in kind.

"Hmm." Alex grunted, staring at Vergil's slowly growing army of sand-tan figures. "I only have fifteen-hundred points, but…" He suddenly turned to Trinitite, a gleam in his eyes that the abyssal didn't like at all. "Would you like to play? I can guarantee Dustin's brought another Guard Army you could borrow."

She didn't even have to think of an answer, her response spilling out almost immediately.

"Noo-hoo…" The Abyssal asserted, her voice trailing off as she shook her head. "I want to see how you two play it before I try this myself."

"Sure thing." He nodded, looking back to his opponent. "Can you go a bit light on the armor, then? Make things a bit more even."

Virgil sighed, taking what looked like a massive human, about half as tall as her hull was if Trinitite was interpreting the scale correctly, and placing it under the table.

Trinitite was content to stay silent as the two humans started setting up the 'battle.' scattering the table with miniature representations of bushes, rocks, and shattered husks of buildings that reminded the Abyssal of her time before landfall. At the same time, they started placing 'objectives' on the board, in the form of bright orange disks. It looked a bit silly, seeing the colorful circles dominating the supposedly serious battlefield, but the abyssal guessed it made enough sense. For plenty of fleets the reward of killing the enemy was enough of a reason to fight, but the more successful ones limited themselves to goals like that. Additionally, the justification that Alex provided, that they were important pieces of Tau technology that his army wanted to secure, made a little too much sense to her.

Why hadn't other abyssals ever tried that? Yes, Trinitite knew she wouldn't get any practical use out of all those advanced rockets and super-fast aircraft she'd been on the dangerous end of over the years, but there had to be some exceptions. You'd think that, after hearing of Jellyfish's horror stories about the bomb, that somone like the Crane Princess would at least look into getting one of her own, but as far as Trinitite knew her traitorous 'allies' had dismissed nuclear weapons as something as fantastical as the machine-humans on the table in front of her.

Well, it was their loss, eventually.

Trinitite remained quiet as Alex tried to walk her through the process of deploying the two armies, despite feeling a little incredulous. Watching them take turns placing units on either side of the battlefield seemed fair, but this was supposed to be a war, wasn't it? The idea of two hostile forces trickling one at a time onto the battlefield, then politely waiting to commence hostilities until everyone present was good and ready came to her, and she had to suppress a chuckle.

Then the wargame started. The two opponents tossed a pair of labeled cubes- 'dice-' onto the table, counting up the label on each side to determine who would go first. She guessed the system made sense- as her survival at Bikini proved, luck and random chance could be just as important as skill and equipment, and knowing how to compensate when it was with the enemy was an important skill. Vergil declared that he was going first, producing a measuring tool and announcing how he was going to move his warriors.

For a moment, Trinitite thought that was a good thing for Alex. The other human was forced to announce his plans first, giving her fleetmate the opportunity to adjust his own strategy and react, but it didn't take long for her to dismiss that notion. Virgil directed a peculiarly-shaped aircraft to fly over one of the objectives, well in front of the guns of most of Alex's army, before casually unloading a group of 'breachers' onto the orange point.

Ignoring how such an unwieldy aircraft could have moved or carried marines, something Trinitite was certain there was a reasonable answer to, she instead found herself forced to ask about another issue.

"Your army can't shoot that?" She asked, looking pointedly at a large figure with two light cannons jutting from its hands. She didn't know the specific details, but even with the weapon's short barrels and probably limited ammunition they should have no problem at least shooting at the offending aircraft.

Both humans paused to look at her, before Alex shrugged.

"Well, it's not charging, so I can't activate overwatch."

What?

She couldn't see what those two things had to do with something as simple as using a firearm, but she pretended to accept the explanation anyway and nodded. Maybe a bit more context from watching would help explain things to her.

Without protest from the abyssal, Virgil proceeded to measure out the movement for another tan-clad unit, then another. Trinitite found her incredulity only growing as he flagrantly moved one after another in front of Alex's guns, her coworker's army doing absolutely nothing in response. It was… ridiculous, seeing them walking around inside their gun range without seeing any response, but she was willing to stay quiet and watch in the hope things would make more sense soon.

Then, the shooting phase started.

"What?" the Wo-class exclaimed, as Virgil triumphantly declared a couple of Alex's 'rangers' dead after rolling a handful of 'dice.' "The army who gets to move first can attack first, too?"

It made a kind of sense, that the person who moved their army first would also be able to attack with them, but it also meant that whoever won that first role must have had a massive advantage. Any combat with carriers Trinitite had been in had been so lopsided that such considerations wouldn't have mattered, but during training Jellyfish had emphasized the importance of the first strike in combat.

After recovering from the abyssal's outburst, Virgil shrugged, still focused on the board.

"It's just my turn." He replied, his voice weak. "That's… the rules."

Again, she wasn't satisfied with the response, but Alex still didn't seem too bothered by it. Maybe he thought he could manage the damage from what Trinitite could only visualize as a crippling surprise attack, or perhaps it was just a land thing.

The game continued, Trinitite watching the two humans joke and chat with each other, despite the fact they were simulating brutal combat between forces under their command. It was… strange. They weren't of the same fleet, that she was sure of, but the way they talked to each other was something Trinitite had only really seen between fleetmates, either in the service of the abyss or the construction site.

This… camaraderie. It wasn't really something she'd been able to experience after fleeing the MacAulay Construction Group, at least, not to this degree. She'd already been working in the Jack in the Box Fleet for a week now, yet she still hadn't talked much with her coworkers. There was Alex, of course, and she'd heard the occasional joke between other fleetmates, but if anything had gotten this casual, she was sure Shannon would have broken it up.

Only now did The Abyssal realize that she missed that feeling, immensely. If it meant buying silly-looking fake armies and going along with the fantasy that was 40k, then she'd do it. The Wo-class had adapted to worse, after all. Leaving Alex to his battle, The Abyssal stood and turned, walking towards the shelves of products the fleet that owned this building had been displaying. She had no doubt, now, that their tactic was to provide resources and space for these wargames, so they could then sell them on these 'armies' and the supplies to maintain them. It was clever, but Trinitite guessed it would have to be, considering how nonessential these were. Recognizing the word '40k,' the abyssal set a course for the dedicated section of the store, an entire shelf filled with similar designs displaying different types of… 'armies.'

Deep, it was really hard to take them seriously, considering none of these fighting forces were real. What kind of army should she even go for? She still had a limited amount of funds, about forty-eight dollars with some loose change, but supposedly her first money was coming into her new bank account tomorrow, so she could afford to stretch the cash in her stocks a little. Getting closer, her rangefinders wandered over strange-sounding names like 'Thousand Sons,' 'Astra Militarum,' and 'Drukhari,' before tracing over a price tag, and all other thoughts were forgotten.

One hundred and thirty dollars!

The Abyssal just felt like she'd struck a mine. What kind of price was that? With that kind of money, she could buy something with utility, like another propane grill! Why would she- No, how could anyone justify giving that kind of money for some chunks of plastic, or metal, or whatever those miniature armies were made of! In awe, she turned around, mentally counting how much money she'd seen get thrown around on one of those tables alone. Those four humans weren't alone, either. She could count three others clustered around different tables, each chatting and joking with each other as if they hadn't spent such an obscene amount of money on something that didn't really help them at all!

Just when she thought she was getting humans, they'd once again gone and done something so… self destructive it left her completely flabbergasted. Why spend so much money on something so expensive? Couldn't another fleet make something like this cheaper, or couldn't they just use rocks like she'd done while explaining formations and the like?

She suddenly remembered the bike Alex had. Maybe the disrupted supply lines were part of the reason it was so expensive? She wouldn't have been happy if she'd known the supplies she'd risked her life to protect were useless pieces of plastic, after all. Still, the Wo-class had a hard time imagining what price these things would be, to convince her to buy some. Maybe thirty dollars? There were cheaper, smaller boxes, but the price never dipped below seventy.

Obviously, she wasn't going to buy any of this, so she started to leave, heading back to Alex and his little wargaming group… only to catch a familiar pale visage in the corner of her eyes, staring at her from across the store. The Carrier drifted to a stop, inspecting the not-quite familiar face dominating the front of another box. Even from this distance, she could make out her cool, blue eyes, white skin, and rugged collar, as well as the indomitable hat that made up her rigging.

Why would this building's fleet sell something with a Wo-class on it?

One of the reasons I even factored 40k into the story was for the conversation I got to write here. Whether it's the silly and pretty racist propaganda cartoons of ww2 or the protest songs of the Vietnam War, I love media that's obviously been influenced by a historical context. Popular culture's downstream of current events, and now days with the internet it shifts and changes to adapt to events in some pretty fascinating ways.

The something as momentous as The Abyssal War would obviously have major effects on popular culture, and I wanted to explore that a little bit here. This is a bit of a shallow example, but it felt like the one that would be most fun for me to delve into. I already mentioned stuff like shipgirls occasionally getting gest appearances in movies for propaganda value, but other examples could be how the comic books industry has adapted to this. Has Superman saved an island from abyssals yet, are there any original abyssal villians or shipgirl heroes yet, stuff like that. It's just... fun to think about.

Anyways, I tried to be neutral and accurate on how 40k plays without bogging down the story at all in technical details. Hopefully I struck a good balance, giving a good enough reason to explain why Trinitite's been turned off the franchise (besides the Doylist explanation that she's already done 40k in Jessetheswift's great crossover snippets on SB) without making it seem like I was being unfair to the hobby. It'll definitely show up again, but probably not with this much prominence.

Hope you enjoyed!