//------------------------------// // The Ultimate Showdown of Awesomeness // Story: Oncoming Storm: Love and Wargames // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// The tournament was off to a good start, at least. The first couple rounds had been fun, even if I’d mostly been going up against opponents who just didn’t have the skills or a good enough list to put up a real challenge. After all, this wasn’t an official gaming tournament or anything; just all the local players getting together to blast at each other. The shop hosting the place had a pretty nice setup with a dozen tables for gaming, along with a couple of display cases to show off the store’s models. Naturally, all of them looked way better than anything I could do. Not that I was horrible at painting my minifigures, but I just didn’t have the time to spend hours making every single one of my guys look absolutely perfect. More importantly, some genius had realized that the perfect place for a game shop was right next to a place that made chicken wings. Or maybe it was that the chicken wings guys realized that a game shop made for a great neighbor. Either way, everyone had plenty of snack food available, and I’d narrowly avoided having one of my cannons stained with buffalo sauce. And, not to toot my own horn too much, but I was pretty good at the game. It was hard for anyone to break my trench warfare specialists once they were properly dug in and sitting on top of the objectives, especially with all the other support I had for them. Artillery, chain guns, and grenade launchers had done a great job of tearing apart my enemies long before they actually got into range to hit back. Especially since my army was just about immune to enemy shooting once you added up the bonuses from being entranced, the smoke bombs my frontline used for cover, and a defense spell from my leader. Soon enough we were up to the quarter finals. I’d just finished watching Sparkler get eliminated by Shining Armor; considering I would be facing off against him in the semi-finals, it seemed like a good idea to scout out his army. His lightning knights had made short work of Sparkler’s army of half-naked elves, but with any luck I would fare a bit better. After all, I had a little sister’s honor to avenge. I was the only one allowed to crush and humiliate her. Sparkler sighed as she put up the last of her squads. “That bouncing lightning crap needs to get nerfed. Good luck avenging me.” Rainbow snorted as she joined us, starting to set her own army up on my table. “Jumping a little far ahead, Sparky. Cloud has to beat me first before she can do any avenging.” She smirked at me as she started setting up her battle bears. “And trust me, you’re gonna go down faster than the Dwarven Navy.” I sighed and shook my head. “Did you even read the setting lore? The dwarves are actually a major trade power with one of the strongest navies around.” I sighed and shook my head. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked, a lot of players didn’t bother with all the setting fluff, and Rainbow wasn’t a huge reader aside from the Daring Do stuff. Still... “You have a dwarf leading your army. You should know stuff like that.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “The army book was a hundred pages long. Excuse me for not remembering every single little detail, especially when my army’s got so many different groups in it. The important part is that my army is gonna kick your butt.” She smirked and set her ninja elves in place. “And they’re gonna look way cooler than your lame guys who dig in the mud more than they fight.” “That is a pretty good paint job,” Sparkler conceded. “Just one of the many things I’m awesome at,” Rainbow answered with her typical level of modesty: none. “Rarity helped her.” Twilight stepped over to join us, looking over our armies. “Sorry if I’m butting in, but Shiny’s been trying to talk me into building an army so he’ll have someone else to play against. The least I could do was watch a tournament and find out a bit more about it.” “No problem.” I smiled and pulled up a chair for her. “Seen anything you like so far?” I thought it over for a bit, comparing what I knew about Twilight’s preferences against the factions within the setting. “I could make a few suggestions for armies, but I imagine right now you’re still kind of picking things up.” Twilight nodded along. “There’s a lot to absorb. I’m still figuring out all the different themes you can go with, like Shining’s thunder knights or Cloud’s trench-diggers or Rainbow’s...” She trailed off as she stared at the strange hodgepodge of units Dash was fielding. “Sorry, I’m still figuring everything out. What theme are you going for?” “The Legion of Awesome,” Rainbow supplied with a proud smile. “Pretty cool, huh?” “I’m not sure it’s a solid theme so much as Rainbow just grabbing whatever she thinks is awesome.” I looked over her list and sighed. “For Shadow’s sake, instead of infantry she just has a bunch of tamed bears.” Sparkler smirked and nudged me. “Hey, don’t knock her right to arm bears.” Twilight groaned and facepalmed, while Rainbow scoffed and rolled her eyes. I agreed with both of them, but decided not to give Sparkler anything. After all, the only reason she’d make a pun that lame was to get a reaction out of us, and I refused to give her the satisfaction. Rainbow scoffed and poked me in the ribs. “Don’t bash the battle bears. They already hit really hard, and my guy has a spell that makes them even stronger. Plus it makes them explode.” I sighed and shook my head. “Of course your army features exploding battle bears. They make a perfect compliment to the arctic ninja elves ... who you’ll probably also make explode using that spell.” Rainbow smirked and nodded along. “Well duh. It’s pretty much my go-to spell for anyone who’s gonna be in melee. Why wouldn’t I want them hitting harder and then exploding when they die? That’s radical.” Shining Armor finished talking shop with Dad and walked over to have a look at our armies. He’d evidently caught part of Rainbow’s last remark, judging by the puzzled frown on his face. “I thought the meta was to use that spell on cheap disposable infantry? The guys you’re using it on are elite units.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Who cares about that? Sure, it can make a cheap guy hit like an elite, but that just means it’ll make elites hit like super-elites!” Shining frowned, then shrugged and nodded along. “That’s true. With lucky rolls your guys could do some serious damage to heavies under that spell.”  Twilight quickly looked over the rules, then tapped her fingers against each other, evidently doing the math in her head. “You would need very lucky rolls. Statistically speaking, it would be much more optimal to—” Rainbow snorted and gave Twilight a pat on the back. “Twilight, this is a wargame, not a spreadsheet. The statistics and averages don’t matter.” Twilight scowled at her. “Yes they do. You might get a few lucky or unlucky rolls, but over the course of an entire game everything averages out.” Shining quickly held up a hand to cut her off. “Twiley, never doubt the power of the Random Number God. That’s a sure way to end up botching every single roll you absolutely have to make to win the battle while your opponent’s dice are on fire.” “Sacrifice the unbeliever to the almighty dice gods,” I droned. “Heresy begets retribution.” Twilight snorted and adjusted her glasses as she rolled her eyes at both of us. “I swear, some of your gaming superstitions are just ridiculous. The mathematics behind dice roll averages are quite simple and incredibly well understood. Even you do get a few anomalous rolls, it only makes sense to pursue the course of action with the highest mathematical chance of success.” “Of course, Twiley.” Shining grinned and gave his sister a reassuring pat. “Just saying, bad and good rolls happen, and usually at the worst possible time if you foolishly anger the dice gods.” “He gave me a pretty good lesson in that just a bit ago.” Sparkler sighed and extended her hand to him. “Good game, by the way.” “You too.” Shining shook her hand and smiled. “You almost had it; you did a good job bringing the pressure, but you wound up leaving your elves just a little too exposed.” A particularly mischievous grin popped onto my little sister’s lips, and I braced for some incoming brattiness. “Well, it’s your fault for staring at them.” Shining’s cheeks lit up. “Th-that’s not remotely what I—” He sighed and shook his head. “Okay, I guess the stories Tor and Twiley tell about you are true.” Sparkler’s grin widened. “What sort of stories are these?” I swooped in to the rescue before Sparks could build up too much brat-ly momentum. “So Shining, heard I get to take you on in the semis after I beat Dash.” As I’d known it would, that provoked Rainbow. “You said that wrong. You mean, I get to dent Shiny’s Armor after I crush your army of boring, Cloud.” Shining looked at both of us, then snickered. “Looks like you’re both fired up for this match. I’m looking forward to it either way, even if it’ll be a total one-eighty of what sort of army I’ll have to prepare for.” “If you can prepare at all,” Rainbow shot back with a confident grin. “And really, what can you do against all the crazy stuff my army has to play with? Remember, being crazy gets you halfway to crazy awesome.” “But all the way to being nuts,” I countered. I picked up the dice and gave them a couple shakes. “So, we done with the obligatory pre-game trash-talk? Ready to roll off for first turn?” “Go for it.” Rainbow smirked. “You might as well seize the initiative sometime.” She paused a moment, then amended. “Also, you’re a butthead. Just figured I’d get that out there before we finished the trash-talk.” “Yeah, sure.” I threw the dice, and grinned when I got a ten. Rainbow got a five. She scowled in that cute way she always did when something annoyed her, but she was trying not to let it show. “Alright, you get to go first. Hurry up and do nothing, Cloud.” I refused to rise to the bait. “I’m not doing nothing. For the record, what I am going to do is have my guys advance forward and start digging trenches. The front rank will toss out smoke bombs to give the rest of my army cover. That puts me in control of objectives two, three, and six. That’s half of them, so ... come at me.” Rainbow snorted. “Doing what you do best: blowing smoke and a whole lot of nothing. Let me show you a real army does things.” She started moving her models up the board. “My ninja elves will go up the flank, while my battle bears take the center and move forward. And now ... I move up my artillery a bit so they can open up on your front line. The big gun won’t be able to shoot until next turn, but my lighter stuff can go right now.” I chuckled. “Really, Rainbow? Artillery? You know my guys are dug in, and they have a smokescreen on top of that. You’d need double sixes to even hit.” Dash smirked. “Hey, if your guys want to dig their own graves, that just saves me the trouble of cleaning up once the battle’s done. My pirate cannons shoot explosive shells, they don’t need to score a direct hit to kill your guys.” Her grin widened as she added, “And maybe you forgot, but my army leader buffs explosions.” “Didn’t forget any of that,” I shot back. “But maybe you forgot that my guys take reduced damage from explosions while they’re dug in. So actually ... yeah, anything less than a direct hit will do nothing.” Rainbow made her rolls, and things played out exactly like I’d predicted. She scowled down at the board. “Bah, I’ll get you next turn.” “Sure you will.” I started making my moves. “Though as long as we’re talking artillery, let me show you what my big guns can do. Time to teach you a couple things about what us army-types call counter-battery fire.” My own artillery went to town on hers, which didn’t have any of the protection of defensive buffs that mine did. Her pirate guns might have been cheap and fairly hard-hitting against anyone who wasn’t as tough as my army, but ordinary pirates with no more armor than the shirt on their backs were horribly fragile. After that my chain guns and grenadiers put some shots into her battle bears. The bears were tough enough to not go down easily, but I at least softened them up. Shining Armor nodded along once my turn was done. “Nice gunline. Think I might regret bringing a mostly melee list.” “Yeah, but your bouncing lightning attacks auto-hit,” Sparkler grumbled. “S’why I lost. Have I mentioned how completely overpowered that is?” Shining chuckled. “It might have come up. However the first attack has to hit before they start bouncing. Sure, I can target my own lightning-immune guys for the first hit—” “Which is bullshit,” Sparks grumbled. “—but I still need to get them in range,” Shining concluded, ignoring her interjection. “I would bet Cloud doesn’t intend to let me get that close.” “Was my rough plan,” I conceded. Of course, it was a safe bet that Shining would have a couple tricks up his sleeve to close the distance, and if that worked I would be in trouble. My army wasn’t completely hopeless in melee, but my guys armed with trench knives and rifle bayonets would have a hard time winning a close quarters brawl against elite knights with lightning swords and full plate armor. Rainbow grumbled as she marked off the last of the damage on her badly mauled bears. “Don’t talk about the next round just yet, Cloud-cakes. You gotta beat me first.” She grinned and moved up her flanking force. “My ninja elves ignore cover and concealment, because they’re both ninjas and elves.” She made several rolls, and suddenly my trench fighters had a bunch of longbow arrows sticking out of them. “And now, we charge in.” More dice rolled, and more of my guys got cut down by their katanas. “As one of our friends would say, how do you like them apples?” “AJ’s are better.” I frowned down at my front line, trying to work out the best way out of my situation. Rainbow’s ninja elves were hard enough to hit that I didn’t like my front line’s odds against them, especially after the damage from their arrow volley and charge. And having any of my guys shoot into the melee wouldn’t work with all the penalties I took to firing into melee. Maybe I could try pulling my front line back to leave the ninja elves exposed, but they’d get a couple free shots at my men’s backs as they withdrew. Not to mention it would leave my entire front line in shambles. Rainbow’s triumphant grin widened as she saw me puzzling over my next move. “Might as well just concede now, Kicker. Unless you wanna try shelling your own troops there’s no way you’re getting rid of my guys.” I had a crazy idea. I checked one or two things, and the idea started sounding a lot less crazy. “Thanks for the suggestion.” I had my grenade launchers and artillery start shooting at the front line brawl. With the penalty for firing into a melee I didn’t score any direct hits, but all the explosions going off I didn’t need to. My own guys were still in their foxholes and had plenty of protection against the blasts. The ninja elves with nothing more than leather armor were far more vulnerable. Rainbow’s jaw dropped as her elves got wiped off the board. “You’re bombing your own guys? That’s pretty hardcore. Of course, my elves explode when they die thanks to that spell, so...” More dice flew, and despite the protection of their foxholes my front line was starting to look a little ragged. Rainbow grinned as she saw her opening. “Your front lines now have more holes than swiss cheese now. It’s time to finish you off with the most fearsome weapon in my arsenal. My bears are charging in, and my commander uses his spell to make them hit harder and explode when they die, since you killed off all my elves.” I grimaced as her bears tore my front line to pieces. It wasn’t even close to a fair fight. The buffed up bears hit so hard it was impossible for them not to kill every one of my guys they hit with a single blow, and they were accurate enough to almost never miss in melee. The only survivor of my front line was one guy the bears couldn’t quite manage to reach. Losing my entire front line was ... not great, but that was actually a bit of a blessing in disguise. I moved the one survivor over to provide cover for my commander, leaving the bears wide open and completely exposed with no cover and all my heavy guns pointing right at them. Almost as if I’d planned for the possibility that my front line might get overrun by a bunch of crazy magically enhanced exploding bears. Rainbow’s battle bears were very tough. Not quite tough enough to resist an entire army’s worth of machine gun, artillery, and grenade fire. Especially when I’d already softened them up a bit earlier in the fight. Rainbow groaned as the last of her bears went down. “Dangit. Fine. I didn’t need them anyway. I’ve still got my huge mega-cannon and my commander.” She scowled down at the table, trying to find a way to turn this around. Then she smirked when she spotted an opening. “I’ve got a shot at your commander. Tournament rules say that if I kill her I win, right?” “Yeah,” I answered, undaunted. “If you kill her. With my cover and smoke bonuses along with her buff spell, the odds of you landing a hit would be...” I did the math in my head. “Actually, nevermind. You would need a sixteen, so it’s flat-out impossible for you to hit my leader, even if you roll double sixes.” Rainbow frowned, tapping her chin. “Wait, my commander has a once-a-game ability to make any explosive weapon roll three dice instead of two! I’ll use that!” I’d been wondering if she’d forgotten about that rule. “Okay, if you do that you might be able to hit. It’s still insanely unlikely, though.” “She would need a sixteen or better on three dice.” Twilight confirmed. “Which makes her odds ... a little under four point two percent.” “With how awesome my rolls are, that’s the same as a hundred percent.” Rainbow cocked the dice and threw. Deathly silence settled over the table until the dice settled. Six, Five, and Six. Seventeen. One over what she needed. Well. Crap. “Okay. So you actually managed to roll high enough to hit. But my commander has fifteen hit points, and her armor is equal to the base damage of your cannon, so you’d need a fifteen on three dice for damage. That’s slightly more likely than your last roll, but still...” “Just an eight point eight percent chance,” Twilight confirmed. “No way she can make two rolls like that in a row.” I concluded. “Technically she can,” Twilight countered. “Probability is merely mathematical average. The odds of her making a second high roll are no better or worse on account of her previous rolls.” She paused, then amended, “Unless there was something about her dice that made them more likely to roll high.” “Good point.” I swiped Rainbow’s dice, replacing them with mine. “Roll those.” Rainbow shot a faintly annoyed glower my way for the dice swap, but used mine anyway. I let out a sigh of relief when the first one came up as a three, only to shift to groaning when the next two were both sixes. Fifteen. “Well ... crap.” “No way,” Sparkler gasped. “Yes!” Rainbow pumped her fist triumphantly. “That’s what I think of your math about the odds! Numbers can never trump awesome!” I stared at the table mute shock for several seconds, then slowly started clearing away my army. “What were the odds of those two rolls, Twilight?” Twilight answered promptly. “Approximately point three six percent.” Sparkler let out a low whistle. “So about a one in three hundred shot. Nice.” “That shouldn’t have worked,” I grumbled. “But it did,” Shining pointed out. “Sometimes longshots pay off.” “Darn right it did,” Rainbow crowed. “Once again, awesomeness triumphs over the forces of boring!” “Yeah, yeah...” I sighed and offered her my hand. “Good game.” Rainbow grinned and grabbed my hand, shaking it vigorously. “Yeah, awesome game.” She hesitated a moment. “Um ... wanna get outta here for a sec? Just, y’know, stuff. Don’t want the peanut gallery here.” She looked over the Shining. “You don’t mind waiting for a bit before I kick your butt, do you?” Shining waved her away. “Nah, take your time. I’ll want a bit to set up anyway.” I stepped outside with Rainbow, and we headed over to my car mostly just so we’d have somewhere to sit down while we talked. Besides, the two of us talking in my car was a bit more private than doing it right in front of the store. Once we were settled in I made the first move. “Guess I was wrong about your Legion of Awesome.” “They did do pretty good, but...” Her bravado deflated a little as she sighed and confessed. “That was a Hail Mary pass to end all Hail Marys. You heard Twilight, there was less than a one percent chance of me making that work. And if the shot missed or didn’t do enough damage you would’ve wiped me out next turn.” “Yeah, but you still won. And those ninja elves and battle bears didn’t do too badly. Maybe with a bit more support and leader more suited to them...” I took a deep breath. “Yeah, your crazy army isn’t looking so crazy anymore.” “And your boring army was a bit cooler than I gave it credit for,” Rainbow admitted. “I mean, you can drop artillery on top of your own guys and hurt me a lot more than them. That’s pretty radical. Give it one or two bits of pizzazz and I could work with it.” She took a deep breath. “So ... um, I guess what I’m saying is that together, we’re unstoppable. I mean ... I get it. You’re not trying to be boring or anything, you’re just trying to be sensible and think things through. Just ... I like my awesome as well, y’know?” “Yeah, I get it.” I ran a hand through my hair. “And I’m not trying to take that away. You wouldn’t be you without that. It’s ... when I’m being a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, it’s ‘cause I’m trying to help you. Keep you grounded, before you go flying off into your cool, awesome, and radical dreamland that doesn’t always match reality.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like I’m Pinkie.” She hesitated a moment, then confessed. “Though ... yeah, I get what you mean. The boring stuff matters, and sometimes I don’t think about it as much as I should.” “And maybe sometimes I worry about it so much I forget to have fun,” I admitted. “S’why we make such a good team,” Rainbow concluded. “Because we’re different, and that makes both of us better than we would be on our own. And together we’re unstoppable.” “Darn right we are.” I slowly extended my hand to her. “So ... we cool?” Rainbow looked down at my hand and snorted. “Girlfriends don’t shake hands, butthead.” She leaned over and kissed me to make her point. We probably would’ve gone for some quality makeout time if not for the fact that Dash had a game to get to. Not to mention Sparks was probably going to make jokes about us doing exactly that, and I didn’t want to give her more ammunition. “Yeah, love you too. So ... want me to go get some snacks while you set up to take on Shining?” Rainbow grinned. “See, this is why you’re awesome.” It took about twenty minutes to get wings for everyone, and by the time I made it back Rainbow and Shining had already started. “Okay, so that’s cherry-habanero wings for Dash, my plain ones with bleu cheese, buffalo wings for Dad and Sparks, honey-barbeque for Twilight, and garlic parmesan for Shining, right?” Rainbow grinned and took her wings off me, only to pause with one halfway to her mouth. “Is it weird that I eat wings when I have wings whenever I pony up?” She thought about that for a second longer, then shrugged and chowed down. “Whatever. Anyway, you’re just in time for the main event. You get to watch me totally beat Shining with a combination of awesomeness and combat pragmatism!” “Can’t wait to see it.” I dipped one of my wings into the bleu cheese and joined her in chowing down. Rainbow stared at my cheese-dipped wing with vague horror, and I rolled my eyes. “What? It’s good.” “Nothing with stinky cheese on it can ever be good,” Rainbow opined. “Don’t know how you can stand that stuff.” “Says the lady who wants cherry habanero sauce on her wings,” I shot back with a grin. “S’far as I’m concerned you’re both equally nuts.” Sparkler cut in. “I’ll just stick with my buffalo wings with ranch sauce, the way they’re supposed to be eaten.” As often happened whenever she opened her mouth, Rainbow and I dropped our argument to team up on the brat. “I was wrong, Cloud. You’re not the most boring Kicker. Your bleu cheese might be weird, but at least it’s unique. Everyone does buffalo wings.” Sparkler snorted. “How very hipster of you. It’s popular, so that means it’s boring. Next you’ll be saying you liked chicken wings before they were mainstream.” “Bah.” Rainbow threw a piece of celery that bounced off her nose. “Anyway, sit back and watch as I show you how to beat the guy who kicked your butt in the tournament. Which means I’ll also be beating you by proxy.” While Sparkler chewed her wings while struggling to come up with a suitable bratty counter, I took advantage of her silence to survey the battlefield. What I saw was just a bit concerning. “You really did go all-in on the lightning knights, didn’t you?” Shining shrugged. “The game does reward you for picking a theme for your army, whether its guys with lightning swords and spears or a gunline that digs foxholes.” “True,” I conceded. “Of course, there’s something to be said for an army with exploding attack bears too.” Shining chuckled and nodded. “I admit, I spent a lot more time thinking about how to beat an entrenched wall of guns than I did worrying about my army being overrun by exploding bears. My knights have plenty of armor, but not enough to shrug that off.” “Darn right they can’t.” Rainbow grinned as her bears charged forward, supported by her ninja elves. “Look at your poor little squad of guys, all isolated and alone. It would be such a shame if they all got eaten by bears and stabbed in the back by ninjas, wouldn’t it?” “Yes, it would,” Shining answered dryly. “I would advise leaving them alone.” Rainbow’s grin turned into a full-blown smirk. “Sorry, I wanna win.” I looked over Shining’s deployment and did a quick mental rundown of what I remembered of his units and what they could do. Then I realized exactly why he didn’t care about losing one squad of infantry. They were the bait for a trap that would wipe out all of Rainbow’s infantry, leaving her with nothing but her artillery and commander against his nearly intact army. “Dash, are you sure you want to—” Shining loudly cleared his throat and shot a pointed look my way. I grimaced and kept my mouth shut. There wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule about commentary from the people watching the game, but it was usually seen as rude to go from commenting to offering advice. After all, Shining was playing against Rainbow, not me. So I said nothing as Rainbow charged her entire front line into the trap. The single isolated and horribly outnumbered squad suffered a quick and bloody and at the hands and paws of her army, but now Dash’s units were in a horrible position. They were so clumped up that Shining wouldn’t have any trouble bouncing chain lightning between different models until there was nothing left but a few dregs his cavalry charge could easily finish off. I sighed and shook my head. “Well, you had a really good run, Dash. And maybe he’ll flub his rolls.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Luck.” “Bleck,” Rainbow rubbed her cheek. “Cheese-lips.” I scoffed. “Like you’ve got any room to talk with your crazy cherry hot sauce.” Rainbow snorted and kissed my cheek in turn. “Way less gross. See?” I tried to ignore the fiery trail her lips left and turned my attention back to the game. The first thing I noticed was that he’d moved his artillery back a bit for safety. Actually, just a bit too far back. He was currently doing some measuring and grumbling as he realized he’d pulled his lightning towers so far back that they weren’t actually in range of Rainbow’s infantry blob. Weird. There weren’t any rules against pre-measuring, and he was clearly a veteran of the game. That was the sort of mistake most beginners wouldn’t even make. I leaned over and whispered to Rainbow, “Why’s he doing that with his artillery?” Rainbow shrugged. “Probably just scared of my ninja elves getting his guns next turn.” “Must be up to something.” Maybe he was going to use that same trick he’d pulled against Sparkler, and shoot his own lightning-immune units in the back to arc the shots into Rainbow’s army? Seemed like a bit of a waste since Rainbow’s bears were large and easy to hit targets compared to Sparkler’s speedy and scantily armored elves, but he could just be playing it safe. Rainbow smirked as she watched me looking things over, then bumped her hip against mine. “No armchair general-ing, Cloud. S’my army, I’m the one who’s gonna kick his butt.” “Thank yulp,” Shining cleared his throat. “Um, you. Thank you.” He moved some of his infantry forward ... so that they blocked the charge lane his cavalry were going to use. Okay, this wasn’t normal at all. He was smarter than this. Rainbow seemed every bit as perplexed as I was, staring down at the board and trying to puzzle out what he could be up to. She groaned and rubbed her forehead, mumbling under her breath. “Come on ... think like Cloud, think like Cloud...” She wrapped an arm over my shoulders, as if hoping the proximity would help my tactical skills transfer over by osmosis. Shining coughed and finished laying out his battle line. I’d never seen a worse setup; just about none of his units could do anything with how jammed up they were. He’d somehow squandered a perfect ambush. Rainbow looked back and forth between me, Shining, and the table. Then she had her artillery blow a few holes in Shining’s knight clump before her bears went charging in, and her ninja elves went chasing after his lightning towers. Shining started his next turn, glowering down at the board. “Okay, that could’ve gone better, but I can still win this. I just need to—” I missed whatever he was going to say or do next on account of Rainbow suddenly grabbing me and dipping me for a deep kiss. Not that I was complaining about it, and after the initial surprise I didn’t hesitate to give as good as I got. Once we’d wrapped up I realized we’d pretty much killed all conversation and activity in the room. Twilight and Shining were both blushing and awkwardly avoiding looking at us, while Dad had gone from casually observing the game to burying his nose in the book he’d brought. Guess watching me and Dash smooch was a bit too much for his Dad-ly instincts. Sparks was the first to recover. “Get a room, you two. Or at least save it until after the game.” “Yeah, yeah...” Rainbow waved her off, shifting her attention to Shining. “Anyway, you done with your turn?” “I’m durp.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m done. Your turn.” “Shiney!” Twilight groaned, burying her face in her hands. “You haven’t even moved half your units yet!” “I haven’t?” He blinked, then stared down at the board. “Oh. Well, I don’t suppose I could...” “Tournament rules,” Sparkler cut in with a teasing grin. “No take-backs.” Shining sighed and nodded along. “Right, right. My fault for not focusing.” Rainbow grinned as her army rampaged through Shining’s helpless units. Her exploding battle bears tore the rest of his knights to pieces, while her ninja elves made short work of his artillery. Shining still had a couple models left on the board, but he knew it was over. He sighed and extended his hand to her. “Good game.” Rainbow grinned and shook. “Thanks. Even if I did kinda play dirty to win.” Shining chuckled and grinned sheepishly. “Well, messing with your opponent’s head is a valid strategy. Granted, that’s a new take on it.” Twilight shot a flat look at him. “You mean taking advantage of the fact that girls can turn you into a complete doofus?” Sparkler snorted and covered her mouth in a vain struggle to contain her brattly laughter. “Yeah, pretty much. If I ever have a rematch with you, I’m showing up in costume. Maybe dress up like one of my elves—I bet I’d table you in two turns if I did that.” Dad sighed and massaged his forehead. “No going around half-naked just to mess with the heads of hapless young officers, Sparkler. Especially when I have to work with them.” “Thank you, sir,” Shining murmured. He cleared his throat and turned back to Rainbow. “But yeah, wouldn’t mind a rematch someday. It was a nice trick, but it won’t work twice.” “Yes it will,” Twilight mumbled just loud enough for us to hear. Rainbow shrugged. “I wouldn’t do it anyway. Messing with him to win was funny and all, but next time I kick his butt I’m gonna do it without any tricks.” Shining grinned. “Guess that means I need to start adapting my tactics to handle exploding bears and ninja elves.” “You can try,” Rainbow shot back with a smirk. “’Course, the Legion of Awesome is an ever-evolving force. Who knows what they’ll look like a year from now?” “Aside from even more awesome than they already are,” I deadpanned. “Anyway, Rainbow made it to the finals, so she gets to take on the champ, right?” “Yup,” Shining confirmed. “Good luck—she’s got the nastiest army I’ve ever gone up against. I took her on last year, and she wiped the floor with me.” He grimaced at the memory. “Those debuffs were just nasty. I think she’s undefeated.” “Undefeated so far.” Rainbow grinned. “But she’s never played against me. So what’s she like?” Shining shrugged. “No idea what she’s really like. She wears a costume and stays in character whenever she’s here. And the character is...” He trailed off, struggling to find the right words. Twilight spoke up before he found them. “Am I going crazy, or did someone just turn on a fog machine?” I looked down, and sure enough the entire floor had been coated in a misty sort of fog. A second later a deep, malevolent chuckle echoed through the room. The laughter slowly built up until it became a full blown evil cackle as what could only be the store champion stepped into the room. She had a black hooded cloak that covered most of her body and face, and what I could see was covered in elaborate purple armor. “Tremble and despair, for Nightmare Moon has arisen to blot out the sun! The Night! Shall Last! FOREVER!!!” Rainbow was the first to recover, grinning fiercely. “Nice entrance. Bring it on!”