Life During Imaginary Wartime *
Twilight set down a massive box of pizza on the café table before sitting down next to Celestia on the booth.
"Geez. Took you long enough," Luna grumbled. "Gimme a piece, I'm starving."
"Y'know, one of you girls could've gone," Twilight replied sharply. "Sometimes I feel like I get the short-end just because I'm the youngest."
"Oh, hush. We did 'nose-goes,' and you lost," Cadance jibed, opening the pizza box and peering inside. "Ew, mushrooms, Twilight? Seriously?"
"Whatever," Twilight grumbled. "You should've come with me to help pick it out then. Especially considering we've done nothing but play board games in here all day. I'm pretty sure they closed the café two hours ago and were too polite to ask us to finish our game."
"What? Game?!" Luna shrilled. "Equestria is a game to you? Look at the box, Twilight! It says right there: 'Global Domination!"'
"Right underneath '...The Game of...'" Twilight rolled her eyes. Then, she turned to Celestia. "Did they try anything funny?"
"I dared not take my eyes of the board," Celestia replied, still staring intently at the game of Equestrian Risk. "Even as Luna insisted that there was something of extreme importance behind me. I'm pleased to say the Royal United Solar Alliance stands strong, and has not been tampered with by the fearsome... uh, Team Awesome Alliance."
"We will be victorious," Luna sneered. "Right Cadance?"
"Uh, sure," she said, still prodding the pizza box. "But seriously, ew. Mushrooms. You had one job, Twilight."
"Oh, quit stalling," Celestia cut in. "I believe when we left off, I was attacking you, my dear niece. You are only delaying the inevitable."
"Yeah, yeah," Cadance grumbled. The crude, balkanized map of Equestria before them was dominated primarily by Celestia's yellow and Twilight's purple, and Luna and Cadance's blue and pink were a pinprick in a sea of looming defeat.
Cadance bit into her pizza savagely. "Luna, refresh my memory as to why we allowed alliances. Between egghead and older egghead, I don't think we ever stood a chance the moment they started scheming together."
"Nonsense!" Luna said proudly. "Be confident, Cadance! Equestria will be ours yet!"
"Come on. All we've got are two armies across Griffonstone and Yayakistan. They even took the Crystal Empire from me. War's over, Luna."
"It is not!" Luna barked. "Where is your moxy, Cadance?"
"I believe I have some in my purse," Cadance replied. "Sorry, Luna. We're done. Besides, I really should be getting home before Shining forgets to feed our goldfish again. And also Flurry. We might as well surrender and keep a bit of dignity—"
"Surrender?" Luna shrilled. "We shall never surrender! Did we surrender when Tirek was rampaging through Equestria?"
"Uh..." Twilight blinked. "Well technically—"
"It is in our nature to fight!" Luna cried.
"But only by drawing colourful cards from a deck." Cadance rolled her eyes. "Fine. Pass me the dice."
"Die," Twilight growled.
"Wow," Luna scoffed. "Rude."
"No! I mean, the singular form of dice is—ah, forget it."
Cadance grasped the die proudly in her magic, holding it close to her snout as if she were about to start whispering encouraging things to it—which, admittedly, was something Twilight would expect Luna to perhaps do.
Celestia, too, levitated a pair of dice towards her and did not hesitate before rolling them onto the table individually.
"Six," she said aloud as it came to a clattering stop. She tossed her second. "Aaaand another six!"
Celestia grinned widely, already pushing her army onto Yayakistan. Cadance let out a guttural growl as she released her own dice, if only for the last of her lingering pride. "Two."
"The Kingdom of Cadenzia is no more," Celestia declared, triumphantly plucking the last of Cadance's army from the board.
"I hate this game," Cadance grumbled. She took a violent swig from a bottle of red wine on the table. "I wanted to play Malnourished Hippos."
Luna glared at the board for several seconds.
"Well, I have no chance to survive," Luna said bluntly. "Eh. I surrender. Might as well keep some of my dignity."
"I'm too tired to get mad at you," Cadance said. "To the surprise of nopony, the nerdiest rulers in the world won the nerdiest game about ruling the world."
"That sentence was a work of art," Celestia said. "Well, Twilight? As an epilogue to this lengthy quest of world conquest, shall I annex the Twilightians with the Celestian army?"
"What?" Twilight blinked. "No way! If anything, you should annex your army with mine!"
Cadance and Luna shared a glance of growing dread.
"My dear Twilight, you performed marvelously, and I am considerably proud, but if it had not been for our truce I would have been able to wipe you off the board in three turns, tops."
"Oh, yeah?!" Twilight exclaimed. "We'll see about that! I attack Canterlot! The Celestian army is going down!"
The temperature in the café seemed to drop several degrees as Celestia slowly reached for the set of white dice.
"Luna?" she said, not taking her eyes off the board. "Let the castle know I will not be returning tonight. I will be preoccupied."
"What am I to tell them?" Luna protested.
"Tell them I am going to war with Twilight Sparkle."
I've been slowly chipping away at this chapter for, like, three months. Every time I've felt it's right, I've looked on it the next morning and decided it was rubbish.
Here it is in its least rubbish state.
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I will bet on Twilight winning. Sorry Celestia but the young blood has got all the right moves.
Yes.
Oh boy.
Is it wrong that I think that a board game is about to become epic?
7243232 I imagine it would be an incredibly popular affair in Equestria, to be honest. It'd be the equivalent of Putin and Obama sitting down and playing a game of chess. It's just a simple game but god damn it would be alot of fun to watch.
Risk is mostly chance so either could win. Also, why the mushroom pizza hate? There is nothing wrong with mushrooms.
That was beautiful. Big smiles on my face, perfect moments and characterization. Also Shiny forgeting to feed the goldfish is a huge laugh.
I predict a month of stalemate in which both Twilight and Celestia neglect their friends, duties, personal hygiene and sleep. It only ends when an exasperated shop keeper gets Luna to flip the table.
7243240 Oh, I love mushrooms on my pizza.
Most horses wouldn't like the taste of mushrooms at all though.
I guess it begs the question of why a pizza like that would exist in an equine-populated world but, eh...
Fun chapter, but it just got me thinking...
Would any of the Princesses play Warhammer 40,000? Which army would they collect?
Why can I picture Luna yelling "WAAAAAAGH!!!" as her Orks charge into Cadence's Slaaneshi demons? Or Celestia's Eldar outmanoeuvring Twilight's Space Marine deathstar?
And thus a huge international misunderstanding about a war ensuing happens. All thanks to Celly for not adding the specific piece of information that'll prevent chaos across Equestria. Great job sunbutt.
7243207 Well technically they did go in for the backstab as soon as the elements activated. So they didn't really surrender they were letting a fool who thinks he can win anytime against the ponies walk into the spot where the harmony cannon would activate.
Sorry Twi, but the Empress protects
7243314 Slaanesh yesssss lust rules all... also Chaos For discord and nercrons for Sombra Chryssi gets nurgles and hmmm pinky would get the Khorn for her Khorn flakes
7243314 I choose tyrannids!
7243265 I mean to be fair Hawaiian Pizza exists here, so...
A few hours later, as the final moves of the game were about to be waged and Celestia was about to win, she found Twilight's one final ploy: She spiked the pizza with laxatives while Celestia's attention was preoccupied, ironically with raising the sun. And thus, Twilight won the war as the enemy's leader fled the battlefield to find a bathroom (Or at least, one that wasn't out of order. Twilight had taken that into account as well.)
IMO, the 40K armies would be distributed as follows:
Celestia: Sisters of Battle, Ultramarines, or Imperial Guard
Luna: Forge World pre-Heresy Lunar Wolves, lovingly painted to Golden Daemon level
Cadence: Emperor's Children (agreed with Snowkitsune)
Twilight Sparkle: Thousand Sons (for the magic and Tzeentchian trickery)
Rainbow Dash: Ravenwing, or Eldar
Applejack: Space Marines
Pinkie Pie: Harlequin-heavy Eldar, or Thieving Magp... erm, Blood Ravens
Fluttershy: Tyranids
Rarity: Sisters of Battle, or Banshee-heavy Eldar, lovingly painted to almost Golden Daemon level
Next time bossy sisters, let your niece play what she wants.
img.pandawhale.com/post-34094-Hungry-Hungry-Hippos-gif-tumbl-G0hH.gif
too bad equestrian doesn't have real time strategy games i'm betting luna would kick celestia and twilights butts at it.
Cadence just went up on my princess rank.
7243801 And down in mine.
I needed this fic, after having one of "those days". This fic never ceases to bring a smile to my face, no matter the mood.
All in all, that was the perfect end to this chapter. I loved it!
Okay, loved the end of that chapter!
Also, do I assume that Monopoly has been stricken from the list by collective royal decree? I'd also suggest you look up a game called 'Double Feature'. Think you'd find it interesting.
Throwing dice with telekinesis seems sort of cheaty, you always could put the right spin on it
7243463 Chrysalis: Necrons
Starlight Glimmer: Thousand Sons or Corrupted IG
Pinkie Pie: Slaanesh?
Shinning Armor: Grey Knights?
Applejack: Ultramarines
Trixie: Tzeentch or Inquisition?
Celestia & Sunset: both SoB (Tia Angelic, SS Penitent)
I vote for/bet on Twilight for the win, thou Celestia has years of experience.
Called it!
I mean, you'll have to take my word on that, but I saw that one coming.
I have to bet on Celestia winning. She just has more knowledge in ruling Equestria than Twilight, thus giving her the upper hand. Then again, Twilight is a nerd who probably had more knowledge in the actual game, but I still have my bet on Celestia.
You may think this chapter is rubbish but it is one of my favorite chapters. It brings me back to my dad and his war games with my uncles.
Plus, that last line is great. So much potential for misunderstanding.
7244335 I'll take that bet. Remember that Celestia is the one who came up with the greatest anti-Tirek strategy of all time: Surrender, give all power to Twilight, and let her come up with the winning plan.
7244487 More of an anti-Discord plan, really. Remember, they didn't say that they couldn't stop Tirek. They said that "with Discord by his side" they wouldn't be able to stop him from taking their magic. Given that they defeated Tirek before despite being two alicorns shorter than in the series, and aren't shown using or said to have used the Elements to do it, the implication seems to be that Discord was the real threat to them. The duo's little magic-hunting rampage and the fight with Twilight kind of support that as well.
Celestia and Co. made the best call there. They made a serious mistake in inexplicably leaving the window with Twilight on it intact, but the decision to leave things in her hooves was good. They've never been able to face Discord without the Elements, and Twilight (as well as her friends) were the only ones who were still connected to them and the tree, giving them the best odds of figuring something out. Especially if the enemy was focused on the other princesses.
I'd put my money on Celestia. Twilight is good at fixing immediate problems, but Celestia is better when it comes to looking at the long term. It could go either way, really. Regardless, you know they're not leaving that café for a while.
7244951 Let's be real here, the real anti Discord plan is fire the
Magical McGuffin Artifacts of Rainbow-Colored DoomElements at him. Which were only unavailable to them because the plot demanded it because Hasbro said "We need Rainbow form super ponies and a crystal castle because BUY OUR TOYS!"That said, you're right. Twilight is good for short term. Celestia is better at the long game. Could go either way. My money is on Twilight because Celestia's reaction indicates she did not foresee this betrayal (what a shock) and is faced with a very immediate problem. Ergo, the ball is in Twilight's court, imo.
7244994 True, Twi's betrayal was unexpected, but Risk isn't a game you can go into expecting to win with one unexpected move. They both have their full armies and all the time in the world. Celestia has time to regroup.
Also, if Tirek is any indication, plot will demand that all of Twilight's creativity and cleverness randomly disappear for the sake of wildly bashing her forces against her opponent's. Then again, plot will also demand that Celestia get hit by a stray pebble or something so Twi can take the spotlight.
Oh, it's so exciting
I'm having this image of Luna having to magic proof the entire cafe, just because the tension is becoming dangerously real.
Why does it feel like Luna purposely set herself to lose out of spite for Cadence?
We all know who would win in a strategy game...
This little pony
7245147
I don't know, in theory it does feel like she would win.
But I'm also sure she would freak out over the opponent not doing the same as in the book she read about it.
Would it be possible for Discord to join them?
Love the fic, by the way. Spent an hour reading from the start to the very latest one. Can't wait for the next chappie.
7245312
SHE JUST WANTS TO KEEP ALL THE COTTON CANDY HAIR FOR HERSELF!
7245338 7245312 Now we know why she was so aloof towards Cranky. He was coming dangerously close to discovering her oldest secret!
7245293 Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed!
Discord miiiiiiight, but I'm absolutely shit at writing him, so it seems somewhat unlikely.
Still, never say never I guess.
Even though I just did twice.
7243387 I'm not seeing your argument here...
7243398 But I thought they don't.
And twilight is the type to have luck on her side. The tree of harmony would see to it.
That's the LAST thing you wanna tell ponies, Celestia. xD
Short but eh it's RISK. This chapter alone could have taken up story of its own with some 70k words just to get to the point we're at now. lol
If Risk is this bad for them, I don't even want to contemplate if the 4 of them got A Game of Pones (the board game based off the popular show based off the books by George R. R. Maretin)
My money is on Twilight.
7243265 as one whom loves anchovy pizza I can admit that most people can't stand it. I also love sauerkraut, pickled herring, and asparagus, so... I'm not exactly the pinnacle of normal tastes.
7274114 I haven't seen this before, but it's alarmingly relevant and very funny.
Although, the irony being, I'm the Macbook-Writing-Motherfucker in Second Cup. Except I'm writing this story.
Now I kinda want to write a chapter about Cadance being furious at not being allowed to light up a joint in a coffee shop. It seems oddly in-line for her.wow, malnourished hippos xD
Cadance is now officially worst pony. Sorry.
(At least tell me she's okay with garlic!)
I dunno, I think all Risk games inevitably end like this, so I'd say this isn't rubbish whatsoever.
so uh...who won? And is the cafe still standing? Gotta read the next chapter.