Year of 05
Did you two really think I wouldn’t notice? The pony thought, watching Applejack and Rainbow Dash huddled together in whispered conversation. It’s clear that you’re trying to find me, but you never will! I’ve worked too hard to allow anything to stop my nation’s rise now. I’m afraid I will need to break apart this lovely ‘team’ you’ve got. And I know just the way…
She gave a quick look around the room, but none of the others were watching. She quickly slipped her hoof into the unprotected game box and drew out a piece, slipping it onto the board. She ducked back over to her usual seat just as Spike called out that the round was almost over and hid a smile. And now to watch the sparks fly…
…
Spike hummed and scratched at invisible itches for nearly a minute, but it soon became clear he couldn’t hold it off any longer. He shot one last glance at the window, fluffed the papers in his claws again, and began.
“Alright, Summer turn, fifth year. Fluttershy moved her air force from Pte to Heyuktan, and her other one supported her army’s attack on Ard. Twilight was leaving it for the Sea anyway, so there’s no fight and Shy gets her spot back.”
“Fair’s fair, I suppose…” Twilight grumbled, crossing her forelegs sullenly. “I couldn’t keep it anyway.”
“Right, well Twilight also got pushed out of Garanha,” Spike continued, trailing a claw down the page to the next point. “All three of Rainbow’s pieces here attacked together. Her army travels from Zaldia to Palomino and this one moves into the newly empty Paardveld. Her last unit went up into Latigo, but Rarity left it anyway when her two air pieces pushed Pinkie’s piece out of Hippopotamia.”
“Ha!” Rarity exclaimed, jabbing a hoof at the earth pony. Pinkie bared her teeth and growled steadily back.
“Er… but Pinkie’s unit in the Cerulean Sea took Gryphos…”
“HaHA!” Pinkie exclaimed, mocking the fashionista’s tone perfectly. Rarity’s eye started to twitch and she pushed herself up from the table as if about to start something.
Spike took in a deep breath and started running through the rest of the moves at a high speed, trying to get through with it as quickly as possible. “Rarity’s army here moves into Ust-Kamcatsk. Applejack’s navy Alpaca Sea. Fluttershy’s piece moved into Heyuktan. Pinkie’s army takes the East Dune Sea. And for various reasons, those are the only units that get to move this turn.”
There was a general uproar as half the girls at the table spoke up at once, angrily talking about how he must have made a mistake. Spike had to talk louder to explain.
“Look, everywhere else was evenly matched! Applejack and Fluttershy both sent one unit into Pferdreich and tied. Pinkie attacked Elgland, but AJ didn’t move so nothing happened. And both she and Rarity sent two into Elkheim too! Look, it’s all written here!”
Twilight shook her head and magically pushed back the papers the dragon tried to hold out for inspection. “Don’t worry about that, Spike. You’re in charge of the moves, so if you say it happened we have to accept it.”
The dragon smiled his thanks and snatched up the timer, flipping it over. “R-right! Well then, that’s it. Next round starts now.”
There was some grumbles, but everypony set about collecting their notebooks and pencils. Most of them had walked away from the table when Rarity unexpectedly said, “Wait a minute, did Applejack have this many pieces before?”
There was a pregnant pause for a crystalline moment, and then everypony rushed back to the table.
“No, look!” Applejack said, jabbing a hoof at the top of the board. “See, ah’ve got two of my original spots and three others, makin’ five. And there are five armies right here!”
“Plus this navy down here,” Pinkie pointed out. “Which makes six. You know, it’s not cool to be a copycat. You should have tried something new.”
“Applejack, you cheated?!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Ah have no idea where that came from!” Applejack shouted in confusion.
“Actually, I think that one’s been there for a while,” Fluttershy said thoughtfully. “It’s been sitting on Alpaclan for several turns now, preventing my piece from moving. I mean, I haven’t had much else to watch this game, so I know…”
“So she must have put on one of these up here.” Rarity said coldly, turning back to the top.
Applejack slammed her hooves down hard enough to make all the game pieces jump around a little. “AH DIDN’T CHEAT!”
“You’ve got too many pieces on the board,” Rarity returned, “More importantly, you wrote orders for each of them. Are you suggesting that you simply didn’t notice your own pieces?”
Applejack sputtered and her cheeks began to burn. “Ah… Ah didn’t even think about my moves until the end of the round. Ah’ve been too busy to even-”
Rarity sniffed sharply and turned her back to the farmer, marching stiffly away.
Twilight shook her head and gave AJ a disapproving stare. “Nopony else has a motive for helping you out there. It had to have been you.” She left the table as well, and Fluttershy and Pinkie went with her.
The orange pony was left alone at the table, looking around the room in complete confusion. “But… but ah didn’t cheat! Ah have no idea where that piece came from. You believe me, don’t you, Rainbow?”
She blinked and noticed for the first time that the pegasus hadn’t been at the table with the others. She quickly spotted her about halfway up the staircase and rushed over. “Hey Rainbow, look…”
“Save it!” Rainbow Dash snapped, staring furiously at her notebook. “I thought we were a team, trying to find the cheater together, but I’ve been working with a cheater all along!”
“What are you talking about?!” Applejack said, hurt and anger warring within her tone. “You were with me the whole time, when did ah have time to plant a piece on the board?”
“I don’t know, but it must have been you!” Rainbow closed her book with a slam and spun around to face her. “Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ve been following your ‘plan’ for several turns now, and where has it gotten us?”
“We’ve narrowed it down to -” AJ started, but Rainbow wouldn’t let her finish.
“Twilight’s moves haven’t changed since we started! Yeah, that could mean she was doing it the other times, but it also could mean that they’re just not doing it anymore! Like maybe she’s trying to get me to suspect somepony else.”
Applejack blinked and her mouth dropped open. “You think it was me?!”
Rainbow snorted derisively. “I’m the only one who’s been sacrificing my moves to your plan when I could have been pressing forward like I wanted. You’ve just bottled yourself up and gotten stronger while I’m getting picked apart. And you did just sneak an army out to defend yourself, so you’re the most suspicious one here!”
“How can you say that?!” Applejack shouted in a strangled cry. “How can you believe that I’m the cheater?”
“I don’t know who to believe!” Rainbow exploded. “I can’t trust you anymore! I can’t trust anypony in this room anymore! I’m going back to what I should’ve done, what I wanted to do from the very beginning! Enough of this teamwork stuff if all it gets me is stabbed in the back! I’m going to do what’s best for me and only me!” She snatched up her notebook and shot into the air, zipping to the other side of the room in a rush of air.
Applejack watched her go with burning eyes. “Fine then! Ah didn’t want to work with you anyway!” She sat down heavily on the stairs and crossed her forelegs, glaring bloody murder after the weather pony.
Down below, another pony hid a smile as best she could. Perfect…
…
“Uh, Twilight?” Spike said, tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention. “I think the game is starting to get to everypony.”
“Oh? In what way?” Twilight asked absently, scribbling something in her notebooks. “Hmm, I’m going to need to have a talk with Fluttershy…”
Spike stamped his foot and held up his caws in a ‘come-on’ expression. “This is serious! Applejack and Rainbow Dash just blew up at each other! Don’t tell me you couldn’t hear them just now! We have to do something!”
Twilight sighed and spun around in her seat to face him. “I know Spike. This game is bringing out the worst in them and we have to put an end to it.”
Spike sighed in relief and wiped sweat from his brow. “Thank goodness. I was afraid that-”
“Which is why I’m going to win as quickly as possible!”
“Uh… what?” Spike said, freezing in place.
Twilight turned back to her writing. “I’ve got it all planned out. Once the game is over, I’m sure everypony will forgive each other for how they acted. So I’m going to… plah. Pah! Gah!” A long strand of hair from her mane had floated around and into her mouth and she had to spend a while spitting it back out.
Spike took this moment to try and interject some logic. “Wouldn’t it be better if you all, oh, I don’t know… just stopped playing?”
The alicorn brushed her tongue a couple times and shot him a condescending look. “Don’t be silly Spike, we can’t stop the game now. We’re each too even right now. There’s no way to decide who’d be the winner.”
Oh no… Spike thought, but tried one more time to get through to her. “Come on, these are our friends! Don’t you think you should set the books aside for them?”
He reached out hesitantly to push the papers away, but Twilight magically pulled them out of his reach. “I’m doing this because they are my friends. It’s best for everypony if I win quickly and decisively. Which is why until the game is over I can’t think of them as my friends,” she started writing intently again, and the rest of her words came out quietly, as if she were unaware she was speaking aloud. “I have to think of them as enemies, threatening to take away my realm…”
“Right then!” Spike said with fake brightness, backing away from her with a terrified smile. “I’ll just… leave you to it then! You know what you’re doing… I guess?”
“Of course I know what I’m doing.” Twilight said absently, but she wasn’t really paying attention. A new thought had occurred to her, and she had to go over her notes again to see if it’d work. Another strand of her hair floated into her eyes and she brushed it away.
…
“Pinkie.” Rarity said stiffly, walking up behind the party pony.
“Rarity.” Pinkie returned in the same tone, albeit a little warier. It didn’t feel good to act this way with one of her best friends, but darn it she’d been the one to start it! And it still hurt her a little inside. I even tried to apologize!
“I see you have once again attacked my Gryphos,” Rarity said, “I will get right to the point. What will it cost me to get you to leave?”
The odd little pain in Pinkie’s chest grew a little heavier. “What do you mean?”
Rarity sniffed and tilted her head back a bit so she was almost staring down her nose. “That is what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? So what must I pay this time; more chocolates, some of my private, expensive blend of tea, a brand new dress? Or perhaps you wish me to get on my knees and beg?”
With each word Pinkie’s chest felt worse and worse, and at that last bit the pain lurched unpleasantly. Her eyes burned as she struggled to deal with the emotions. “How can you say that to me?! I’m just playing the game like it’s supposed to be played!”
“I’m sure.” Rarity scoffed, but her eyes hardened. “But I will not allow you to take my space from me.”
Pinkie’s mouth tightened with distaste and she struggled to think through the muddle the anger had turned her thoughts into. “Well, maybe I don’t wanna leave Gryphos. Seems to me like you can’t do anything about it!”
Rarity stared at her for almost half a minute before she continued in an icy-cold tone. “Perhaps you didn’t understand. That country is mine! I will not allow you to take what is MINE!!”
She leaned in closer as she spoke, putting more and more emphasis on her words. “I have taken enough accusations today to deal with any more! So here is what is going to happen. I may not be able to remove you from Gryphos this turn, but you can’t get Hippopotamia back from me either. That means the number of pieces I own won’t change, and I outnumber you. I will throw your little air force from my lands and you will never get it onto one of mine again!”
At the end of that little rant the two of them were nearly nose to nose. Pinkie, usually more than comfortable with that level of personal space, suddenly found herself wishing to be as far away from this unicorn as possible. Something, probably her pain and anger at being treated like this, gained control of her active mind and drove her forward. Rarity had to lean back sharply as Pinkie shoved herself up until she had the high ground.
“Oh yeah? Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t. We’ll see who’s laughing soon!”
Rarity bit the inside of her cheek and turned away furiously. “Ha! I doubt that will be you, dear.” She stamped away from her in a huff.
Pinkie sputtered over herself a couple times, her wounded pride refusing to allow Rarity the last word. “Yeah? Well… it won’t be you either! No one will be laughing! This isn’t a game anymore! This isn’t fun anymore!” Her mouth twisted over her words as if she had bit into something sour, but she was caught in the tide of her fury and pressed on. “This is war!”
She spun in place and dashed over to the one pony in the room who could help her deal with Rarity right now. On her way she passed Spike, who was building some kind of fallout shelter out of a stack of books. The dragon slipped the last book onto the pile and crawling behind it, shivering and determined not to attract anypony’s attention unless he absolutely had to.
…
Fluttershy let out a little “eep” as a hoof hit her on the shoulder from behind.
Applejack froze in confusion as the yellow pegasus spun around, and then comprehension dawned and she had the presence of mind to look a little sheepish. “Sorry, sugar cube, guess ah put a little too much force in that one. Ah’m a little angry right now.”
Fluttershy rubbed her shoulder, but she had been more surprised than hurt. She’s angry? Was it something I did… no. I haven’t done anything to her. And I have to stop thinking like that! I need to act tougher or I’ll never get anywhere in this game.
So instead of accepting the apology like she’d normally do, she forced her hoof back to the floor and looked at the farmer levelly. “I’m fine. What did you need?”
AJ blinked in surprise at the reaction, but then violently shook her head and focused. “Look, ah just want a straight answer to a question. Are you the one who has been changin’ other pony’s moves?”
Fluttershy froze. That hadn’t been close to what she’d been expecting her to say. She thinks I’m the one who’s been cheating? Why would she think that? I haven’t… wait. Is this one of those tricks I’ve seen the others playing? What could she be trying to gain by trapping me?
It hadn’t escaped Applejack’s notice that Flutters was not only hesitating to answer, but was apparently thinking furiously. No way. Fluttershy? Ah was only askin’ her to rule out the obvious, but why else would she act like this? Has… has she been lyin’ to us this whole time?
Meanwhile, Fluttershy’s eye had happened to fall on her map and a dark suspicion had blossomed. Wait… is this about Pferdreich? Is she trying to intimidate me so I don’t attack this turn? How… could she?! I promised the others I was going to try and play for real, and she’s trying to scare me away?
A small voice tried to tell her that Applejack would never do such a thing, but Fluttershy overrode it with a little shake of her head. I have to try to act like Twilight said I should. I need to be brave and forward if I want to play. I can’t afford to be kind right now; I have to be hard!
So she looked AJ in the eye and said, in as calm a voice as she could manage, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Applejack stared at her until the tension in the air was thick enough to cut, and then nodded slowly. “I see… well then… ah’ll leave you to it.”
Applejack walked away, her thoughts awhirl. Ah simply can’t believe that she’s the one, but why is she actin’ so suspicious? Does she know who the cheater is? Why wouldn’t she tell me? What is she tryin’ to hide? And most importantly, how many of these ponies have been lyin’ to me this whole time?
Fluttershy watched the orange pony until she was sure she wouldn’t look back and then spun around and buried her head in her arms. She felt terrified, exhilarated, hurt, and proud all at once, and it threatened to overwhelm her. She’d done it! She had put herself first, thought it through, and she’d come out of the confrontation ahead!
While it was on her mind, she wrote Army in Western Badlands attacks Pferdreich and Air force in Jama supports attack on Pferdreich in her notebook. She had to make the most of her personal victory, after all.
…
Stupid Applejack, Rainbow Dash fumed from her corner on the kitchen, as far away from the others as she could get. Twilight had come in and tried to ask her something, but she’d just ignored her until the egghead had wandered away. Stupid whoever it is messing with the orders. Stupid buffalo for only starting with armies. Stupid Twilight for finding this game in the first place! Well I’m not going to get taken down like this! Starting now, I’m taking this game to the cleaners!
Stubborn pride surged through her veins and galvanized her into motion. With a deft motion she picked up her pencil, mentally ran through her plans for the turn, and pressed the tool to the paper. It’s immediately snapped in half, throwing tiny splinters in all directions.
“OH COME ON!!!” Rainbow nearly screamed, spitting the ruined end out of her mouth. She glared down at the pencil, but it didn’t magically fuse back together. In a fit of pique she slapped the broken ends and send them spinning out into the main room. She growled under her breath and swept up her notebook under her wing. She’d have to ask Twilight for another one.
The thought of asking for help after her outburst galled her, however, so her first stop after leaving the kitchen was to swerve over to the box to see if it had a spare. It didn’t, but she did see that somehow there was only five minutes left in the round. She’d have to hurry if she wanted to finish in time.
Twilight was deep in conversation with Pinkie as she walked over. “Sure, I think I can do that for you,” Twilight told the party pony, but was interrupted when Rainbow fell heavily into the seat next to her.
“Hey, I need to borrow your pencil, mine broke.” Rainbow said, doing her best to avoid eye contact and maintain her dignity.
Twilight glanced up at her own pencil, which was magically writing out line after line in the air above her, and back to her friend. “I’m kind of using mine right now, but here. You can use this.”
She levitated a quill and pot of ink over to the weather pony and set them on the table. Rainbow sighed and popped the top of the well. There was only a little ink left inside, but there was enough for her needs. She dipped the quill in and hurried to write out her moves.
She had barely put the last word in when Twilight snatched up the paper with her magic and folded it in half. “I’ll take this over for you, since there’s not much time left in the round.”
Rainbow snapped the paper out of the air with her wing angrily. “I can do it myself, thank you very much!”
She stamped away, tossed the folded paper over the pile of books that was Spikes fallout shelter, and flew off somewhere to sulk. Twilight watched her go and glanced over at the hourglass. She nodded to herself and made one last adjustment to her own page just as the last few grains ran out.
And with that, everything is in place.
…
Applejack had kept mostly to herself after her failed conversation with Fluttershy. Most of that time had been spent taking deep breaths and trying to work through what she should do next. Her heart simply wasn’t in the game anymore, but she’d be hogtied with a garden snake in a nest of fire ants before she’d give up a contest.
She broke out of her musings when RD shouted again and rushed out of the kitchen, and it occurred to her that there was very little time left in the round. With no other plan for her time she scribbled out something or other and headed over to turn it in. She’d barely taken two steps when her hoof came down on something sharp.
She looked down and grunted. “Oh, is just a bit of the pencil Rainbow threw away.”
She started forward again, but something tickled the back of her mind and she turned back. At first she couldn’t tell what was bothering her. It looked normal, just a broken pencil like every other one she’d ever seen…
It was broken on the wrong end.
AJ blinked and leaned down for a closer look. Without magic, most pegasi and earth ponies picked up the knack of writing with a pencil in their mouths. It wasn’t something she thought about much, but it tended to put stress on the end of the pencil near the eraser, where a pony’d bite into it with their teeth. Once you’ve accidentally bit down too hard and got yourself a mouthful of splinters, you learn pretty fast to take care of your writing implements.
But this pencil had broken at the other end, about a quarter of the way up from the tip. Which made absolutely no sense. Normal writing, even pressing down hard in anger, would only snap it either at the point or near where it’d been gripped at the top. A pencil would only break down there if it had been bent or something like that. But why purposefully break a pencil? What would be the point…?
“Applejack? We need your orders.” Twilight said, and AJ almost jumped a foot.
She grinned and shuffled over. “Sorry, ah was woolgathering,” she started, but her eyes happened to fall upon the table. Specifically, upon the quill and bottle of ink sitting innocently there.
Twilight didn’t seem to notice her suddenly tense up, simply grabbing the sheet with her magic and turning back to Spike. She said something to the dragon about how he should stop fooling around, but Applejack’s attention was elsewhere. She quickly scooped the jar aside and walked a little ways from the table. The other girls, sans Twilight, gave her departure a curious look, but none of them said anything.
“It can’t be…” Applejack said softly to herself. She opened her notebook to a fresh page and popped the lid on the ink well. She dipped the quill in and wrote Equestria with a quick flourish. Then she spat the quill aside and waited.
For ten seconds nothing changed and the thought that she’d been wrong flashed through her mind. And then, all at once, the word faded and vanished from the page.
Applejack felt the tension flood from her limbs as she picked up the jar and whispered, “This is invisible ink!”
Invisible ink! Could it be the same stuff from that prank thing Rainbow and Pinkie did way back when? It’s just like Twilight to never throw away supplies, but would she really hold onto somethin’ like this? Wait, what was it Rainbow told me earlier?
She wracked her brains, and in a flash she remembered. “But I don’t know what more we can do.” Rainbow continued. “I’ve been watching Twilight nonstop, but aside from all the notebooks she’s writing stuff in and how she sometimes switches to quill and ink, she’s not doing anything very weird.”
“This is how her moves kept changin’!” she said aloud, her shock slowly building into grim fury. “We weren’t accidentally seein’ her orders at all! She’s been showin’ them to us on purpose! And each time she did, she keep the paper pressed flat on the table! Ah bet she had her real orders written normally on that side, while the ones we saw just vanished away by the time she handed them over! She’s… she’s been playin’ us this whole time!”
Applejack grit her teeth into a snarl and turned back to the table. Somepony was about the get what was coming to her.
…
“Spike has decided that he doesn’t want to run the game anymore,” Twilight said, floating a stack of papers after her as she finally approached the table, “so it falls to me to take his place. Thankfully I read the rules extensively before we started, so it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”
The four others all turned and stared at Spike. The dragon had added a colander helmet to his head and it flashed as he ducked back into his fort.
Fluttershy leaned back into her seat and tilted her head at the other empty chair. “Shouldn’t we wait for Applejack?”
Twilight shook her head. “This won’t take long, and I can fill her in later when she feels like joining us.
“Now let’s get the little stuff out of the way. Elgland was going to support the elk army in Hjort going up into Elkheim, but the tapir navy attacked Elgland. This means Hjort had no support, which would have been a problem if both of the griffon units hadn’t attacked Haupstadt instead. Both of the elk’s remaining units defended that territory, so nothing changes over here.”
“Urgh,” Pinkie grunted in frustration, flopping onto the table and glaring at the green pieces as if they were mocking her. “I can’t believe she still hasn’t moved! What’s the point of having all these armies if you’re not going to use them for anything?!”
“Well maybe she’d have more options if you all didn’t attack her each turn!” Dash accused the others pointedly.
Rarity pinned her with a glower. “Oh, don’t even pretend you wouldn’t be acting the same if you were up here with us.”
Rainbow crossed her arms sullenly but had nothing to say to that, so Twilight continued. “The tapirs tried to take Hippopotamia back, but the griffons defended the space with both their air forces. Pinkie does take Gryphos though, while the griffon army here goes to Borzja. This left Konja wide open for my army to concur.”
Rarity’s eyes widened in shock and no slight amount of rage. “What? You’re attacking me as well?”
Twilight’s eyes flashed and her horn lit up and she moved her piece sharply onto its new home, knocking over Rarity’s flag. “If you didn’t want me to take it, you shouldn’t have split up your forces so much. Now over in Ptehinchala, but the tapirs and the buffalo-”
“Wait a minute!” Applejack interrupted, stomping up and tossing the ink well onto the table. “Ah think Twilight has somethin’ she needs to say to us!”
The little bottle’s top popped off when it hit the table and what black ink was left spread out over the collected notebooks and a bit of the game board. Everypony jerked in surprise and rushed to pull their respected papers out of the little pool, save for Twilight. She just stared coolly at the farmer and ignored the tiny spot of black that had landed on her fur.
“Applejack, what have you done?!” Rarity exclaimed, recoiling from the mess as soon as her notebook was clear. But she’d barely finished speaking when the ink just seemed to fade away from every surface, leaving nothing but a small filmy residue.
“It’s invisible ink!” Applejack shouted, jabbing her hoof at the princess’s chest. “Twilight’s been usin’ it to write fake orders this whole time. That how her orders have been changin’!”
“WHAT?!” Rainbow Dash practically screamed, launching herself into the air in her agitation.
“Ooh, that’s actually a pretty good idea…” Pinkie said thoughtfully, tapping at her chin.
Meanwhile, Twilight sat calmly on her chair and brushed another batch of long, floating hairs from her face. “Yes I was. And?”
“And?!” Applejack sputtered. She’d been prepared for an outburst or a denial, not this calm acceptance. “You cheated!”
“How?” Twilight asked, tilting her head to the side as if interested in a minor problem. She sat up a little straighter, and it seemed to AJ that she was a little taller. “Where in the rules does it say that I can’t change my orders before the round ends, if I want? The ink hardly takes any time to vanish. How is it any different than erasing it normally?”
Applejack gaped at her, momentarily too shocked to return with anything, but luckily Rainbow Dash filled in. “How is it different? You were doing it on purpose! To trick us!”
Twilight turned her attention to the pegasus. “You all were the ones who were spying at my orders. Isn’t that more like cheating than what I did?”
Rainbow sputtered for a few moments before twisting in midair with her hooves pressed to her head, groaning. Then a horrible thought crossed her mind and she froze. “Wait, I just used that ink!”
Twilight nodded and levitated a conspicuously blank page from the stack. “That’s true. Which is why none of your units have any orders this round.”
The table exploded.
Rainbow Dash screamed and made as if to tackle Twilight, but Pinkie and Applejack leapt onto the table and held her back. “How could you do that to me?” she screamed, struggling against the others but no longer in danger of striking her friend.
“That’s hardly fair at all, no matter what you say!” Rarity put it, offended.
“It ain’t fair at all!” Applejack growled. She looked like she was seriously regretting stopping Rainbow.
“How could you?” Flutterhsy said in disappointment.
Twilight bore the brunt of the outburst until there was a lull, then used her magic to push her friends from atop the table while simultaneously straightening the pieces. The three ponies all landed on their feet and Applejack watched her incredulously. “You can’t seriously be continuin’ the game?”
“Of course I am,” Twilight said as she righted the last flag, “We haven’t finished.”
“Hardly!” Rarity said, pushing herself up dramatically on the table. “After all that, do you really think we are going to let you just continue what you’re doing? You can’t win now!”
Twilight’s eyes flashed, not just metaphorically but actually flashed, and the others leaned back from her in surprise. “Can’t I? Perhaps I should finish reviewing the rest of the turn!”
The room seemed to grow a shade darker as Twilight’s magic picked up the papers and various Equestrian flags from the box. “My two armies in Palomino and Konikticut force this buffalo piece out of Semental, claiming it for me. And my two armies further down the coast shove this woefully not supported army out of Garanha, claiming it for me!”
Twilight slapped the buffalo piece aside with her own and it skittered across the table. “But it can’t go back because my navy claimed Caballeria unopposed. For Equestria!” This time she slammed her piece down so hard it snapped Rainbows flag in half beneath it.
As she spoke, Twilight slowly started to rise into the air. Her eyes were now completely white and glowed with an inner power. Her hair was almost thrice as long as it should have been and nebulous, floating about her head like a living thing. Her coat had taken on a darker hue, and random violet energies began to swirl around her. The light in the room was noticeably failing, dipping the room into the kind of light found at a cloudy twilight.
“That’s four new territories I’ve claimed! Even counting the one I’ve lost to the camels,” she shot a glance at Fluttershy, but didn’t seem to be actually seeing her, “I still gain the maximum new armies! And I sent my army up here into Heststed, so next turn I will press into the heart of the Naqah Caliphate and crush them!”
She slammed her piece down inside Fluttershy’s borders, and the yellow pegasus shrank back from the table shaking force of it. The others were struggling to see through a sudden wind that was coursing through the library from nowhere. Spike pressed himself further down under his pile of books, utterly terrified.
Twilight spread her forelegs and wings out to the sides and her voice took on a fever pitch. “Every general I’ve ever read has detailed exactly how to win a war like this! Divide and conquer! Split up the enemy and sweep through them in their chaos! And I have! I’ve been studying you all since the day we met! I know exactly how to drive you all apart! And now it’s too late for you to stop me! You’ll never pull your fractured nations together to stop the might of Equestria! And soon I will push my forces to every edge of the map and claim it for myself. And then my rule will last FOREV-”
And then Princess Celestia crashed through the library window and shot a beam of pure magical force into the game board, setting it on fire.
Here's the map at the end of the Summer turn:
Click here for a closer look.
And here's the map at the end of the Winter turn:
Click... uh... here for... uh, for a closer... um...
Perhaps we should look at the board slightly before the end of the Winter turn:
Click here for a closer look.
Well, that certainly was... unexpected! Seriously though, this chapter was a pain-and-a-half to write, but it was so worth it! I had to pay careful attention to subverting each of their elements in a way that seemed perfectly natural based on their personalities and the circumstances, but still left them at exact odds with their element. I doubt even Discord could have done better!
And bonus points if you caught on to the invisible ink trick or if you noticed Twilight was growing "Nightmare-like" for the past few chapters. They're small, but the hints where around if you could find them!
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Oh dear.
Now if only they fought against each other, then I could make a Hobbit joke.
I wonder who?
Oi...
I am having some really uncomfortable flashbacks to Return of Harmony and "Rarigreed"
I am sensing a Chessmaster, or an attempt at one anyway.
Oh, that is clever.
I know.
Wow. You've been taking lessons in Magnificent Bastardry from Celestia I see.
Oh dear.
What the?!
Well, this happened.
I'm a little disappointed we don't get to read the aftermath.
Now that is an escalation.
I'm no monster expert or nothing, but she's more like bitchmare than nightmare.
Damn. That was quite the chapter ending.
Fuck. Surprisingly, that's what happened over here, too. I had to go over and blow the game up before Nowi went feral, Blaze burned everyone to cinders, Twi went Nightmare, Oichi Moonblasted everyone, Amy went nova, Emily shattered everyone's minds, or Namine erased all of their memories.
That got a little out of hoof...
Sorry...
My bad...
My deepest apologies, everyone.
Yeah, I gotta apologize.
What do you say we never play this again?
I completely agree.
Twilight spread her forelegs and wings out to the sides and her voice took on a fever pitch. “Every general I’ve ever read has detailed exactly how to win a war like this! Divide and conquer! Split up the enemy and sweep through them in their chaos! And I have! I’ve been studying you all since the day we met! I know exactly how to drive you all apart! And now it’s too late for you to stop me! You’ll never pull your fractured nations together to stop the might of Equestria! And soon I will push my forces to every edge of the map and claim it for myself. And then my rule will last FOREV-”
And then Princess Celestia crashed through the library window and shot a beam of pure magical force into the game board, setting it on fire.
And thus Equestria was spared the horror of Nightmare Conquest.
Twilight! You got some 'splanin' to do!
*claps* You are a genius
Oopsies...
Holy crap this was brilliant, standing ovation!
Hats off ta ya!
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=LLcpWp_Swe0uE0MhN9hl5FRw&v=5FjWe31S_0g]
OOOOOOOOOOooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
So THAT'S how Luna became Nightmare Moon.
And I noticed some spelling errors in the story. At one point, Fluttershy is spelled "Flutterhsy."
So now AJ knows what it was like for Twilight at the wedding. (When Chrysalis set up Twilight to look like a lunatic).
“How can you believe that I’m the cheater?”
Considering how much straight forwardness means to Applejack, this is going to kill her inside that the others think she cheated.
Down below, another pony hid a smile as best she could. Perfect…
She's gone mad.
This isn't Pinkie, she's trying too hard to make things up.
I’m sure everypony will forgive each other for how they acted.
In theory, but this has gone too far.
set the books aside for them?”
??????
“I have to think of them as enemies, threatening to take away my realm…”
Twilight's the cheater.
That country is mine! I will not allow you to take what is MINE!!”
-_- Rarity. Why did Greedity have to come out? I thought she was gone for good.
Somepony was about the get what was coming to her.
<b>Game over.</b>
“Spike has decided that he doesn’t want to run the game anymore,” Twilight said, floating a stack of papers after her as she finally approached the table, “so it falls to me to take his place. Thankfully I read the rules extensively before we started, so it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”
Chancellor Palpatine's speech about accepting emergency power.
Twilight nodded and levitated a conspicuously blank page from the stack. “That’s true. Which is why none of your units have any orders this round.”
Twilight. THAT IS CHEATING!!!!!!!!!!!
Twilight you fucking bitch. I hope you lose your friends for life over this. I know that's not going to happen, but fuck you forever times fucking infinity you cheating fucking bitch.
6753548
I. Dont suppose you played these kinds of games before with friends?
This is why I dont usually play these games: either I play them with people who I dont know, and therefore, cannot manipulate them easily, or; I play them with friends, and therefore know how to cheat the devil (me) out of a soul. Or, the rage happens.
:mollestia: