Chapter Text
There she is. A shining light in the darkness. A cool sea breeze in the scorching sun. A life preserver out at sea. Another woman in the game store.
Eve makes eye contact, and the woman lights up upon seeing her, most likely feeling similarly. She stands up with considerable force and waves so hard it rocks her from side to side. Chuckling at her overenthusiasm, Eve makes her way over to the girl, passing by the more typical crowd she's come to expect from a game store. These boys seem to have slightly better hygiene than the ones from back home, not that the bar was set very high, but the lack of a stench upon walking into the room is still something she appreciates. The rows upon rows of loyalist marines with box art paintjobs are a familiar sight. As are the eyes boring into the back of her skull, only to turn away before she can make eye contact. And the murmuring. She knows exactly the kinds of things they’re saying about her, though they think she’s oblivious. Luckily they’re all far too shy to try anything physical.
Enough, she's spent enough time around these types anyway, and having gotten close enough to see her game partner to be, she can finally get a good look at her. Large round glasses dominate her face, magnifying the image of her startlingly green eyes. Between that and her round cheeks and nose, this girl is almost overwhelmingly cute. Her skin shines a radiant gold, and black ringlets of hair frame her face. A colorful wide necked sweater reveals the straps of an ankle length black dress. She absentmindedly chews her lip, looking Eve up and down, probably giving her a similar once over.
There isn’t much for her to see. Straight shoulder length light brown hair is held out of her eyes by a band, pale skin, eyes so brown they’re almost black, and comfortable medium-modest clothing. She would describe herself as plain, especially next to this woman.
“Ohmygod you must be Eve!” she practically squeals, stumbling over her words. “It’s so nice to meet you! Oh! My name is Jade, I don’t know if you knew that already or not. I can never remember what I did or didn’t put in my profile. Lol.”
She reaches out her hand and Eve takes it. Jade’s grip is soft, but solid enough to vigorously shake her hand up and down for slightly longer than is socially acceptable, not that she particularly minds.
“Believe me the pleasure’s all mine.” Eve says, “You mentioned you were bringing Daemons?”
“Oh yes! My babies,” She picks up a case off of the floor and, eyes shining, unlatches it, revealing a violet horde of demons.
Some of them are bloated with angry red lesions and pustules, and gaping toothy maws where they shouldn’t, while others are lithe and ambiguously gendered, wreathed in blue fire. At the center of her army a giant long necked bird demon, its box art gold adornments and twisting staff replaced with shining silver. Each feather individually painted with a blue center fading into purple at the edges. There must have been a thousand of them, a staggering amount of effort.
“I don’t think I've ever seen Chaos Demons in that color scheme before, they look fantastic, especially that Lord of Change” Eve says.
She can practically see stars twinkling in Jade’s eyes
“Thank you! I spent so long on him, he’s so pretty now so it was totally worth it!” She says, squeaking slightly again, before looking over at Eve’s similar case.
“How about yours?”
“Right!”
Eve unlatches her case, revealing her own army. The dominant color is black. Shiny, almost wet black carapace and chitin, toothy maws, exposed glowing green brains, and far too many legs.
“Woah!” She leans in close, black curls almost tangling with the models, “At first I thought they were unpainted lol, but these are amazing! This has really good contrast for a monochromatic scheme… you’ve made some miracles happen here! Oh, is that drool coming from their mouths? How on earth did you get it looking that good, you’re gonna have to show me how to do that one of these…”
She looks back up at her, a shit eating smirk from ear to ear, “You really like Alien, huh.”
She feels heat rush to her face, no doubt showing very clearly on her pale skin. She doesn’t know how to answer that. Jade gives a light giggle in response to her silence,
“Anyway, let's get this party started!”
Sticky black scythelike limbs cleave through rotten daemonflesh, as the tides of the battle shift. It has drawn out longer than expected, and the forces of chaos, grand as they may be, just cannot keep up with the endless horde of deep black maws and biotech weaponry. Only the grotesque regeneration of the Beasts of Nurgle has held out so far, and they aren’t nearly an offensive match for the swarm. They don’t need to survive forever. They just need to hold their ground a little longer before their task is complete. The insectoid force floods through the chokepoint, but isn't quite able to push through fast enough. The daemons, ever loyal to their chaotic masters, hold the line with their very bodies, even as they are torn to pieces. It’s just barely not enough. The tide pushes through the last vestiges of chaos and the swarm of tyranids overtake the locus of the battlefield mere moments before the demons’ task is complete.
“Aww, god damn it,” Jade lets out a long whine, “I really thought I had you there.”
“Yeah, you really had me on the ropes there, I never thought I’d catch up. Really good game! Close too! A difference of what,” Eve looks at the scoring sheet, “Three points?”
She lets out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding, before looking over at her opponent and giving her a big smile. It almost hurts her face, but she holds the expression anyway.
“It feels so good to finally be playing with another woman, you have no idea,” she says melting into her chair, “I mean, actually you probably do. It’s, forgive my language, quite the sausage factory in here,”
Jade's smile falls a bit and she breaks eye contact, looking down at her hands in her lap,
“Ahaha, yeah, I mean it is mostly guy’s here if that's what you mean…” She lights back up, if only a little, “But it’s not all bad here! I actually have a nice group of other women I like to play with, so I haven’t had it as bad as you have it sounds like!”
Eve feels lightning course through her body,
“Really?! You have to introduce me to them! My god, all these years only ever playing with men! There are only so many Ultramarine games a girl can take!”
“Oh, um, maybe, hehe, the girls are certainly more varied in their army choice, ohhhh and you should see some of their paintjobs. You think my army is good, just wait until…” she trails off briefly, “um well I don’t know if you’d actually want to meet them,”
Jade visibly swallows,
“The girls can be a bit… um, indecent? Sometimes?”
“I don’t care what they are,” Eve says, lowering her voice and gesturing to the rest of the games store, "they're better than this, surely.”
“Uhhhh, yeah, maybe. Probably…” Jade says, looking to the side, her face flushing slightly, “Yeah! They, um, they, yeah, they’re pretty chill.”
“Awesome, when can we meet?”