Collide Gamer

Chapter 241 – She shouldn’t have.

John opened the PDF of the rules for Warhammer 40k (technically it was 30k, they were playing with the Horus Heresy rules today) he had on his laptop. This was 45 minutes after they had collapsed on the bed. Nathalia had come to see what the ruckus was about and then needed to be appeased in the usual way.

‘Shower sex with a dragon is exactly like normal shower sex…’ John thought. Shower sex was still in his top 5 of favourite ways to have sex, even if water could be the enemy of lubrication, but he had still expected something… more from Nathalia. Apparently, there wasn’t much to innovate on that front. “How would one do that anyway?” he mumbled to himself; “The slippery floor kind of limits the options…”

“Back on topic, please,” Thana said. “You just got done reading that giant fucking lore summary to us.”

“Ah yes, please, pick a Legion for yourself so we can start,” John told them.

“Mhm,” Lydia walked from army to army.

The hour of preparation between them getting back from the arena and his attempt to reconcile the two had been spent getting this room in order. His plans had succeeded more smoothly than he had expected, with them making up/out and all of that. Still, he needed to actually play the game with them. If he didn’t, he couldn’t justify to his girlfriend that they were in the house.

He was pretty surprised that Lydia stuck around though. As a matter of fact, he should probably ask why she did so.

“I have no more paperwork,” she said, looking over some Imperial Fists.

John thought he needed to clean his ears. “Can you repeat that?”

“I have no more paperwork,” Lydia followed his request and picked up Rogal Dorn. “In order to concentrate on the tournament, I delegated governance to lesser nobles for the time being. The paperwork I do to relax is more of a supportive role.”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” John asked. “Giving other Abyssals power and all that?”

“The European Abyss is far more established than the den of anarchy you are used to from the USA, John,” Lydia answered plainly. “There’s generations of oaths, hierarchies, and structures that maintain the nation-sized guilds that govern this landmass. If they manage to put a successful revolt together in the time I am occupied with this, I applaud their governing skills,” she picked up Roboute Guilliman, “and then I will crush them.”

“You seem really fucking sure of that, despite being the weakest person in the house and probably in the tournament,” Thana commented, reading through a summary on Perturabo’s lore that was attached to the edge of the table.

“It seems you are under the impression that the tournament is a good gauge for average strength,” Lydia stated. “It is not. I am in my position because I am the most promising candidate in my bloodline, and mine is a vast family.” She put Roboute back down and went to look at the Iron Hands for a bit.

“To try and put these money wasting figurines to good use, let me show it to you in a metaphor,” Lydia grabbed an Imperial Guardsmen. “According to the lore he just read to us, these are little more than cannon fodder. This is what the average fighter, not even person, in the Abyss is,” she placed him at the edge of the table, then continued.

“Despite how grand they act, most nobles would fall under this category as well. Innate Abilities are more common among them, but a lifetime of training is a great equalizer, especially if one sits on his luxury, while the other strives for a better place,” she looked annoyed at the guardsman as if he suddenly represented what she held contempt for in her nation. “To put it in John’s levels, by my estimation, these are the people in the bracket from level 20 to 50.

“A wide gulf for those that move within that group. However, for those more powerful…,” she picked up a Space Marine and put him next to the guardsman. The figurine was double the size and clad in thick, futuristic power armour. “…the differences of the average Abyssal fighter mean progressively little. I would be in this category, albeit the lower end. Presumably, Rave is as well. The guardsmen make up about 99 out of a hundred. They are dangerous because of their number, but that’s about it. I would say that the level of people in this category range from 50 to 200. It’s the bracket where raw power becomes less important than the abilities you have. Would the initial Observe of me and Rave support my presumptions?”

“Well, you were level 68, but Rave was only level 15, so half and half?” John answered.

“She was how low?” Lydia asked, bamboozled. “In her defence, she didn’t train a lot, instead she lazed around in an arcade and beat up even smaller time thugs. Also, she didn’t have an elemental.”

“So hanging around you then got her the work-out and motivation she needed to actually strive for some power,” Lydia noted. “It seems you can be a positive influence after all.”

“So, I guess I would be like this badass looking truckfucker,” Thana brought the discussion back on topic and slammed Angron, a Primarch, into the line of figurines. He was, again, twice as big as the Space Marine. The poor Guardsman looked mighty outclassed at this point. John felt panic and sadness wash over his body, under the impression that the poor figurine would not survive this. To his pleasant surprise, Thana had slammed the figurine down just hard enough to produce a noise. With a proud, way too wide, grin on her face she said, “I think I finally got this control crap figured out.”

Lydia cleared her throat. “Yes, that is indeed the next bracket. I would say the number of individuals that are on your level, Thana, does not exceed a couple thousand at most. They are scattered all over the globe and usually do what they want in areas where such things as nations or guilds can’t bother them. The fact that I got someone of your level to fight for me is sure to net me a vast amount of prestige, to be perfectly honest.”

“Good for you,” Thana said with a thumbs-up. “I will be playing these fuckers by the way. World Eaters, metal as fuck, nails in their brains that turn them into ass-kicking berserkers, leader can only feel happiness while he is drilling his axe through someone’s asshole.” She cackled while wiggling the figurine on the table, “Sounds very familiar.”

“I will be going with Roboute Guilliman and his Ultramarines. They intrigue me,” Lydia said and the discussion came to an end. John read to them the point rules for their armies and deployment. As he did, his eyes went over to the lonely figurine of the God-Emperor. He, who was to the Primarchs what they were to the Space Marines. He who stood alone at the top. That was where Romulus was, where John was supposed to be able to go.

John had no time to ponder about that as his girlfriend suddenly broke into the room. “Finally decided to come to the light of 40k?” he asked in a playful tone. He had told Rave his plan before going with it. She had told him that he was ‘over-complicating things’ (she had been right) and that ‘40k was stupid’ (this was debatable) and thus decided to just sit this one out with Momo and Aclysia in the living room.

“Of course not, ya nerd,” Rave said and went over to John. “Go on reddit!”

“Why?” John asked but did.

With some dignity, holding a silver salver upon which she had placed tea and cookies, Aclysia also entered the room. “According to mistress Rave, I found something interesting. I am very sorry for using your account to subscribe to a subreddit,” she said as she placed the refreshments on the table, where Thana immediately went after the cookies while Lydia concentrated on the tea.

Momo also entered the room, reading a book as she walked around the table and sat down. Whatever this was about, she had some interest in it as well. “Why would you have access to my reddit account?” John wondered but found the answer himself a moment later. “It logged you in with my magical footprint, didn’t it?”

“That is correct, Master,” Aclysia confirmed his suspicion and walked over to him.

‘Okay, so reddit has ties to the Abyss too, noted.’ John thought.

The artificial guardian bowed down, and her silvery white hair fell forward. A mellow note of apple caught John’s attention, as Aclysia brushed a few wayward strands behind her ear. “I am getting back problems like this,” Rave complained, “just, make room.”

“Sure,” John smirked, and a moment later Rave was sitting in his lap, with Aclysia still leaning over his shoulder.

They shifted around a bit until Rave was comfortable and John could look over her shoulder without any problems. “There, now… why are ya still subscribed to ‘gone wild’ by the way?”

“Ah, that is easy, for you see…,” John opened a new tab, and a low-resolution picture of a sexy girl of athletic build and below average breasts was presented to them. At the upper edge of the corner, there was a bit of wild, pink hair and an elegantly swung chin, “…I found your nudes!”

“Ya dick!” Rave blushed and glared at him with embarrassment, “I told ya to forget all about those!”

“And I told you I would find them.”

“And I gave ya a whole lot of better ones!” his girlfriend exclaimed.

John remembered that photoshoot fondly, “I still have those as well. Your tits haven't grown one centimetre since then.”

“Shaddup!” Rave demanded, still flustered, and pinched him in the leg. John let out a pained giggle. “Yeah, ya just have your fun on my cost,” his girlfriend pouted. “This is how ya get no more nudes!”

“Aw,” John kissed her neck, “don’t be like that, I just wanted to look at what you put in public.”

“Ya can touch me, I didn’t put that in public,” Rave suggested and ran a hand through his hair.

John breathed in deeply, her sweet scent of bubble-gum and rose water filled his senses. “Smelling you is fine too?” he asked.

“A little creepy, but yeah, as long as it’s you,” Rave mumbled in his ear.

“Okay, let’s stop this before I get too distracted,” John laughed. “What is this about?”

“If you would, Master, I marked a subreddit called ‘the 17th ToG’.”

‘ToG…Tournament of Germany?’ John already had a rough idea what this would entail. He was not sure if he liked it. He read over the titles of the threads. ‘The Jeopardy game today: A summary’, ‘Why Lydia’s caution makes her a better candidate’, ‘Poll: Team Lydia or Team Maximillian’, ‘Poll: Sexiest Girl in the whole tournament’, ‘Why Maximillian’s economic reforms will be the death of the craftsmen in Europe’, ‘Thana Newman appreciation thread’, ‘Y’all insane, Maximillian is the way to go’ – on and on it went like that.

“Okay, so the internet decided to use us as a discussion topic…” John filled in the rest of the crew.

“Can ya click on that one?” Rave wondered, pointing at the sexiest girl thread.

“Sure can do,” John said and pulled it up.

“Congratulations, you are number one… Momo.”

“WHAT?!” the support slammed her book shut and trampled over. “Why?!” she leaned far over, her poncho fluttering into John’s face, who saw a whole bunch of inactive fireflies sitting in there.

‘So they DON’T glow in the dark,’ he thought, slightly disappointed. ‘Or do they just not glow when she doesn’t want them to?’

They scrolled down to the comment section to find the answer to Momo’s question, and it was surprisingly simple. Momo had become a meme. Apparently, the camera had been focused on her when she had her short, awkward burst following her announcement that she didn’t like crowds. In the middle of cutely shifting her upper body with a flustered look on her face (and in incredibly high resolution, thanks to magical cameras), she was now making her rounds on the internet.

“No, no, no. John, make that stop!” Momo demanded as they went down the rabbit hole and found thread after thread of edits of that photo.

Momo with a cowboy hat, Momo with an ‘It’s not like I like you or anything, b-baka’-speech bubble, Momo as a gif. The first drawings were also popping up as they went through the site, and directly before their eyes, they saw the birth of the ‘Momo-Meme’ subreddit.

“MAKE IT STOOOOP!” Momo, half-crying at this point, shouted. By now, her face was so red that it ruined her wonderful monochrome look. “I don’t want to be famous, please!”

“I think that ship has sailed.”

“Can’t we just sue them or something?!”

“Well, even if you could sue every single individual here… that usually has the opposite effect,” John told her. “The memes will just flip from random stuff to mean stuff.”

Momo sank to the floor, “That’s not fair!” she cried.

Gnome appeared to soothe the support’s nerves. “C-come on, you know you can do this!” she tried her best at pep-talking someone else.

“No, no I can’t!” Momo vehemently denied.

“U-uhm…if you say so…” the stone spirit cautiously pulled back, not having been prepared for this amount of backtalk.

Momo sniffed, “Gnome, you need to be more assertive if you are pep-talking someone.”

“I-is that so?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, Momo, you can do this!”

“BUT I CAN’T!”

John had to repress his laughter. It was a funny scene, to see Momo tell Gnome how to help herself, only to then outright deny that help. It continued on as John went back to the poll.

“Gross,” Rave said, the moment she realized that her mother had some sort of cult MILF following. “Go somewhere else. That one! That one seems cool!” She pointed at a thread whose title made John’s face contort as if he had eaten something sour. “Do I really need to?”

“Yeah!”

With a sigh, John clicked on the ‘John Newman is the scum of the earth and here is why’. Essentially, it was about someone spelling out, in detail, that if John WASN’T banging everyone on Lydia’s team, he was a disgrace to manhood and if he WAS he was a cultureless swine. There was no winning here.

“So, the first people are speculating about us fucking,” John summarized the threat for the princess.

Lydia’s expression remained stern, “I will find a solution for this in due time.”

“If you say so,” John went further through the subreddit. It was a mixture of cringe and entertainment, to read about themselves in the public forum. Laughing at the Momo memes was great though. “Look at it, in this one you are a blushing apache helicopter,” John teased her.

“I hate you.” Momo’s tone had looped back around to biting cynicism; “I hate you so much right now. If I could erase all of existence to get rid of that meme, I would!”

“Good thing you can’t then,” Thana told her as they read through her appreciation thread; “People really fucking love my outfit… ’Would look better on someone who doesn’t look like a midget that shrunk together further in an ice-bath. Great tits though.’ HAH! ‘Her tits? My guy, look at her fucking thighs! They make up 70% of her bodymass!’ These comments are great. I need one of these porn-streaming machines.”

“I think you opened Pandora's box with this,” John whispered at Aclysia. “What were you doing on reddit anyway?”

“I like surfing the open debates,” she said with an apologetic bow, “I normally do it while logged out, mistress Rave assured me that making a bookmark this time around was fine though.”

“Give me that!” Momo took his laptop from him and started furiously typing. “What are you doing?”

“Researching internet memes,” Momo’s eyes flew over the screen, taking in several dozen words per second. “If I can’t get rid of it, you will join me in this misery, ‘Master’!”