--Turn 9: Cleanup on Isle Nine--
“Death is a preferable alternative to Communism!”
“Wake up, Equestria!” chimed the well-familiar voice on the radio. “It’s me, Tree Dog! Bringing you all the music and news your little hearts can handle.”
“The forecast for this coming week is cloudy;” began Tree Dog, “grey and dull, all over Equestria. I mean this both figuratively and literally, because in the real world it’s impossible to have the exact same weather all over the country, unless you can actually control the weather, which we can, but that’s not the point. The point is that having the weather be all the same as a whole throughout all of Equestria just doesn’t happen in real life. But most regions of Equestria are predicted to experience cloudy skies and possibly rain during this coming week. But in the geopolitical spectrum, where it is possible to have an entire nation under one cloud, well… it looks like things are about to get really cloudy.”
“You see folks,” continued Tree Dog, “Last month’s Equestria Games in Appleloosa were supposed to be a big relief. To the Appleloosans, to Equestria, and to the world as a whole. Unlike the previous games in Machu Alpacchu, there were wide spaces of flat land and enough oxygen to comfortably breathe. Unlike the games before that in Arachnalia, we weren’t sweating our asses off and we didn’t have to worry at all about mosquitoes and giant spiders. And unlike the games before that in the Changeling Kingdom, it was actually warm enough that you didn’t need to wear a parka in midday. But alas, the Appleloosan Equestria Games weren’t enough to lift our spirits out of the recent economic slump. Instead, it only dug them deeper.”
“Despite our best efforts and our home team advantage, the zebras still eeked out a triumphant victory in overall medal count. Perhaps we picked a location that was too similar in clime to their homeland. Or maybe they trained extra hard, knowing very well how difficult we made our last Equestria Games fro them. Oh, well. Full results are available in today’s edition of Equestria Daily. I’m not gonna read them out to you because we don’t have time.”
“In other news, while everypony else was distracted by the games, the royal guards have recently arrested a young Canterlot Intelligence Agency agent by the name of ‘Pipsqueak’ on charges of espionage and high treason. CIA Authorities noticed early on when files started disappearing and important leads were suddenly cut off, but it took a while to find the culprit. Finally, they began to look at Pipsqueak, the only junior agent who wore designer suits to the office. After bugging his house and rifling through all his personal information, they found that somehow he could afford to purchase a 100,000 bit sportscar—in cash—even though his monthly phone bill exceeded his monthly income. Through a little bit more investigating—a.k.a. sending an ex-marefriend to stalk him—they discovered that Pipsqueak had been soliciting bribes from shady contacts in the zebra embassy. Pipsqueak was arrested and sentenced to life in prison, but not before pulling off the biggest stunt of his career: stealing top-secret plans for a space-based superweapon/missile defense system.”
“Luckily, the project was still in the planning stage and few of the specific logistic details had been answered. Still, that deals a huge blow to our future foreign policy options! Even worse, many of our current foreign policy options have already been revealed to the enemy. It will take some time before the foreign ministry can think of some new ones, but for now we’ll just have to play with our opponents knowing what our next moves will be.”
“Thaaaaaaaanks for listning, chiiiiiillllllldren! And now, some music…”
Having heard more than enough of ‘Wall-o’-text’ Tree Dog, Twilight turned off the radio again. This time, she had figured out how to turn off the radio from halfway across the room, so she didn’t have to walk back over to the table; she was already there.
“Damnit!” she cried as she pounded a hoof on the table. “I always knew that colt wasn’t up to any good! He spilled the beans again, just like he did in ‘Twilight Time!’”
“Didn’t you ever read ‘Great Expectations?’” asked Spike, who brought a tray of chocolate milk glasses to the table. “Ponies named ‘Pip’ will do anything for money.”
“Or sex,” scoffed Twilight as she took one of the glasses. “I saw the 2011 BBC serial. Honestly, Estella wasn’t that hot.”
“You should have seen the 2012 movie,” said Spike. “Holliday Grainger’s kind of hot…. After a few beers, of course.”
“Damnit, both of them are way too long!” grumbled Twilight. “And as much as I love reading, I don’t have time to read the book. Dickens is a wonderful writer, but where the hell can I get a good film version of his work that I can watch in under an hour?”
“Remind me to show you the South Park version,” said Spike. “But right now we’ve got to focus. The phantom’s playing its cards again.”
The phantom played ‘Eastern Primian Unrest’ for three ops points, and placed them all in The Fillyppines, overturning Equestria’s control over the country.
“It’s making a bid for power in Kadur!” cried Spike. “Quickly, do something!”
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” said Twilight, casually playing ‘Weather Balloon Incident’ for three ops points, simultaneously causing a totally-not-suspicious Equestrian ‘weather balloon’ and its pilot to be shot down over Zebrican airspace, granting the zebras one victory point in the process.
“I’ll use two ops points to take back the Fillyppines,” said Twilight, “And my last one in Jackalya.”
“Good job,” said Spike. “Way to stick it to the phantom.”
The phantom played ‘Missile Envy’ for two points, which it used to take over the Southeast Kaduran nation of Bengalia. Twilight responded by playing ‘Elephantian Unrest’ for two ops points, which she placed in Maretonia.
The phantom then played ‘Southeast Kadur Scoring,’ which gave it seven victory points and Twilight one. Twilight played ‘Zuri and Pumpkin Cake’ for two ops points, which she used to undo the zebras’ control over Icantered.
The phantom played ‘Celestia Prime Deployed,’ which gave the zebras one victory point and allowed it to remove one pony influence from three countries in Western Primus. It chose Reiterland, the Roaman Empire, and Unicornicopia, the former two of which were battleground countries and the latter now having insufficient influence for Twilight to control.
Twilight played ‘Orcria elected in Llamidagua’ for two ops points, which she spent to force a tie in Jackalya and to take control of Icantered. But by playing this card, it removed all pony influence in Llamidagua and gave the phantom a free coup attempt against a neighboring country. However, this didn’t do anything, because there was no pony influence in Llamidagua to begin with, and the coup against Coasta Muleia, (the only country the phantom could make a coup against,) because its government was too stable.
The phantom did gain two ‘Friendship Ops’ points, though.
Frustrated, the phantom slid the card ‘Wargames’ towards Twilight. It smiled smugly as Spike took the card and looked over it.
“If DEFCON Status 2,…” read Spike, knocking over a glass of Chocolate Milk in the process. “You may immediately end the game (without final scoring phase) after giving opponents 6 VPs.”
“WHAT???” screamed Twilight. “Is that… thing… ending the game already?”
The phantom nodded, smugly.
“Bu-bu-but--” Twilight stammered, “But I wasn’t done playing yet! A-and… it’s ahead by… fourteen victory points. Even with the extra six, I would still be eight behind… and then I’ll never be able to execute my glorious plan!”
Twilight fell to the floor and proceeded to bawl her eyes out, disappointed beyond words that she could not execute her glorious plan. The phantom rolled its eyes and then broke out into an evil laugh. Spike was the only one paying attention to the giant hand that had just smashed through the ceiling.
As the hand came closer and closer towards the gameboard, Spike’s eyes grew wider and wider in anticipation. When the hand was more than halfway to its destination, Spike went over to Twilight and slapped her across the face.
“Owwww!” said Twilight. “What the hell did you do that for? Can’t you see I’m crying over something completely trivial here?”
“There’s no use crying over spilled milk!” said Spike. “Don’t you notice the giant hand that broke through your ceiling?”
The giant hand was now three quarters of the way to the gameboard. Twilight now noticed the hand and began staring at it. The phantom stopped laughing and noticed the hand too. The hand, once it reached the table, placed its finger on the DEFCON status marker and nudged it slightly leftward. Then it ascended (much more quickly than it had descended) and disappeared just as mysteriously as it had arrived.
“Wow,” said Spike. “Nopony’s going to believe this.”
“Lyra’s gonna be sooooo jealous!” said Twilight. “Not only did I see an actual human hand, I saw the Hand of God himself!”
“Is God actually a human?” asked Spike. “He kind of breaks all of the rules that regular humans are supposed to follow, like NOT being able to smash through houses and singlehandedly change DEFCON meters.”
“That debate could go on for hours,” said Twilight. “And I just want to get this game over with. And execute my glorious plan. And clean up the chocolate milk that you spilled all over the board.”
They looked at the board. The entire Primus region was covered in a big chocolate milk puddle, slowly conquering the world like the magic whateveryoucallit in all those Conversion Bureau fanfics.
Suddenly, the Hand of God plummeted back down into the room. It stopped just before it could smash the table and lightly dabbed the Primus region of the gameboard with a God-sized Shamwow. True to the Shamwow Guy’s words, the God-sized Shamwow absorbed all of the chocolate milk that was on the board, but it left a slight stain where the milk had been. Then the hand rose back up into the heavens, leaving the players in peace.
“Oookay….” Said Twilight, not really knowing how to react. “Now that the milk’s been cleaned up, I can cry over the fact that I’ll never be able to implement my glorious plan.”
“But you still can, Twilight!” said Spike. “The card says the DEFCON status has to be two, and now look where it’s at!”
The DEFCON, which had previously been at two, was now in between the ‘two’ and ‘three’ spaces of the DEFCON tracker.
“DEFCON Two point four?” asked Twilight. Then she turned to the phantom. “Well, I guess since it’s not technically at two, you can’t play ‘Wargames.’”
“But—but--” stammered the phantom. “But that happened after I played the card!”
“If the Hand of God broke through our roof and moved DEFCON meter to two point four,” argued Spike, “Then obviously it was a godsend (no pun intended) that we continue our game.”
“Fine,” said the phantom reluctantly. “Have it your way. I’ll play this for four ops points instead of as an event… but I’ll still win! Just you wait!”
With the game back on track, the phantom placed three ops points in the Kingdom of Warclaw and one in Yugoatslavia, taking control of them both.
“And now for my secret plan!” announced Twilight as she triumphantly played ‘Icantered-Maretonia War.’
“That is your secret plan?” asked Spike wryly. “Really, I thought your plan would have been much more epic than that.”
“Hey, shut it,” said Twilight. “I just made this plan, like, three rounds ago, and I didn’t have time to plan anything better. Now roll the die for the invasion, okay?”
Spike rolled the die and got a four. Because Twilight had neutralized all of the adjacent opponent controlled countries through her earlier actions, the Icanteran invasion of Maretonia was a success. Twilight gained two victory points, two ‘Friendship Ops’ points, and replaced the phantom’s three influence points in Maretonia with three of her own. She now controlled both countries.
But the phantom had a surprise planned. In response to the loss of Maretonia, it played ‘Wonderbolts Barracks Bombing,’ which removed all the Equestrian influence in Leboarnon and two influence in a country of the phantom’s choice, which was Saddle Arabia.
The zebras now controlled both countries.
“Damnit!” cried Twilight. “How dare they? This leaves me no choice but to draw from the deck!”
She played ‘Our Mare in Tehrare’ again, which, because she still controlled Icantered and Maretonia, allowed her to draw five cards from the top of the draw deck. She kept three and discarded ‘Glassnose’ and ‘Emerelda Scoring.’
The phantom played ‘Icantered Mustache Crisis,’ which removed all the pony influence from the nation of Icantered and replaced it with two zebra influence. The phantom now had control over that country too.
“Well fuck,” said Twilight. “They just pulled a major dick move right then and there.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” asked Spike. “Take it back?”
“Hell no!” cried Twilight. “Not after how they betrayed me! Instead….”
Twilight picked up a red phone and dialed a number. The phone beeped for a few minutes before it finally connected.
“Hello?” asked Twilight. “Yes, this is Twilight. This phantom just pulled a really big dick move on me. I want you to bomb—… no, not the zebra homeland, you know we’re on the brink of nuclear war! Instead, I want you to bomb… hmmm… no…. no…. ah-ha! Lynxia.
I want you to bomb Lynxia. Show those zebras they’re not safe. AND teach those friggin’ Mooslims not to complain about Equestrian mustache-growing spells….oh, that’s great!..... My credit card number? It’s Equestrian Express, card number [Redacted]. Yeah. Thank you so much. Means a lot to me. Have a good day. Bye.” And then she hung up.
“What was that all about?” asked Spike. “You know those phone lines are hacked. Couldn’t you have just issued the order through that ‘Bomb Lynxia’ card?”
“No, because I needed to make sure I have Equestria’s best pilot on the job,” said Twilight. “And to do that, I needed to make a personal call. To a friend.”
For no apparent reason, a tiny blue airplane appeared on top of Equestria on the gameboard. It took off, crossed the eastern ocean, crossed over Primus, landed in Maretonia to refuel, then flew westward over northern Emerelda. It dropped several small cylinders over Lynxia, which exploded in brilliant rainbow explosions.
“Did you just bomb an oil-rich desert nation?” asked Spike.
“Eeeyup!” replied Twilight. “And I earned a victory point while doing it, too!”
Indeed she did. For the two zebra influence points in the nation which was just bombed, Twilight earned two victory points.
But the little plane wasn’t done just yet. It then turned around and bombed Nefertia, Saddle Arabia, Markhoristan, and Icantered, earning one, two, two, and one victory point respectively. Then the little blue plane landed in Maretonia to refuel again, and then flew home.
Twilight took the card she had been holding, made a few marks on it with a pen, then placed it on top of the discard pile. Spike looked at the result, which read ‘Rainbow Dash bombs loves and tolerates the SHIT out of Lynxia, Nefertia, Saddle Arabia, Markhoristan, and Icantered.’
“Today was a good day,” Spike thought to himself.
Both sides achieved their required number of ‘Friendship Actions’ for the round, neither are docked any victory points. With a score of 43-42, the game enters the final turn nearly tied.
Still reeling from the effects of the bombing, Lynxia, Nefertia, Saddle Arabia, Markhoristan, and Icantered all gained one Equestrian influence point worth of both fear and reverence for the great superpower.
The DEFCON remains at two point four.