War Games Equestria

by Ghost-111

Ch.1 War Games and Trickery

Chapter 1:

War Games and Trickery

“But why? Why do we need the help of such lowly beings as them?”

“Ooh missy, what’s the hurt in getting some new entertainment?”

“They are weak and untrustworthy beings!”

“Oh really? I’m untrustworthy, you know that much. I love to cause trouble just as much as you want to crush her! So what’s the harm in adding a few more to the mix? Who knows, they may just surprise you.”

“Argh! Fine, but how exactly to you plan on persuading them to aid us?”

“Oh..ho..ho littl’ missy’, now that there’s a darn tootin’ grand question if you ask me!”

“…”

“Oh come now, it won’t take much to persuade these rascals to give us a…”

“…”

“Oh…oh well fine! You’re no fun anyway!”

{------------------------------------------}

“TAKE COVER!”

BOOM

“Gah’dammit! Sergeant put some fire those positions!”

“I can’t sir, they’ve got me an’ my men pinned down! We can’t crest the hill without bein’ torn to shreds!”

“Dammit! Corporal, where in the ‘ell is our artillery?!”

“I’m try’n to raise them sir, but I’m not getting any response!”

“Well try every damn frequency you can get, I want a direct line between us and the…”

“Sir! I got Command on the horn, but they say that the General’s not there!”

“Patch ‘em through to my set would you? I’ll figure out where he’s gone.”

“Captain are you there? This is First Lt. Dare on watch for your station.”

“Lieutenant, would you mind telling me where the ‘ell Mike went off to this time?”

“I have no idea sir! He just up and left after giving the order to hold your positions! Our artillery and 1st through 3rd Tank divisions disappeared with him!”

“What the fuck do you mean disappeared?”

“They’re completely of the grid sir. We can’t raise ‘em anywhere an’ their IFF’s aren’t anywhere on the screen!”

“Sir! We’ve got Heli’s inbound!”

“Then get those .50’s up! Damn, I hope those pendejos know what they’re doin’.”

“What was that Captain?”

“Nothing Sergeant…why in God’s everlasting fury are those choppers still in the air!”

{-----------------------}

General Michael

Current strategist for the ISSC

‘Ahhh…the sun, the sky, and the smell of napalm in the morning…don’t you just love it?’

“Sir! We’re nearing the coordinates! What are your orders?”

So much for my in battle nap…

“Set up the ‘Tonics at the beacon, and have the armor spread out over the ridge.”

I jumped up off the turret of the M1A3 Abrams tank that I was currently cloud-watching on, and rapped on the driver’s port.

“Stop here and wait for orders!”

He just cracked open the hatch a bit and gave me the bird, smiling as he passed on the orders to his waiting crew. I kindly returned the favor as I walked towards an approaching UCP T-99 (MBTv.)

“Oi! You gonna lounge around all day, or are you going to kick some ass today?”

The overhead hatch popped open and a helmeted head poked out.

“Nope I’m just waitin’ for you to get your skinny ass out of the way.”

“Nah…cause you see, you’re actually in my way,” I retort pointing to a trailer about 50 yds. behind him.

“Hmm…so it seems that we are at an impasse tovarishch.”

I shook my head and kept on walking towards the trailer as I pointed him towards a staggered line of several types of tanks, ranging from the M1A1 Abrams to the T-90.

“Ok let’s stop screwing around; we’ve got a war to win Adrian.”

“Correct comrade, just allow me to…”

“Oh can it you Russo obsessed bastard, I need your Pancho Villa style right now.”

“Ahh ... viva la revolución,” he shouted pumping his fist in the air.

“Ok maybe not that mu…you know what never mind,” I smiled as I pointed out several open spaces in the line, “Pick a spot and give it all you got. It’s our last fight so we should have some fun.”

Adrian didn’t bother to respond as he shut the hatch and the tank moved away. I continued my brisk jog towards the camouflaged trailer and the giant patch of greenery that it was parked next to. Coming up to the trailer I rapped against its side with my knuckles and took a few steps back as it opened to reveal a fully loaded F-35.

I couldn’t help but smile as I donned the flight suit and strapped myself in. There’s nothing like the prebattle thrill you get in your belly when you can sense the impending destruction. I turned on the main flight comms, opened a channel, and watched as my radar became filled with green blips that were right behind me. Before latching the final buckle, I turned to get a good over my shoulder as the lush greenery that once stood behind the trailer dissolved away into piles of camouflage netting, revealing eight F-35’s and seven Harriers. All of them armed to the teeth and spinning up their engines just waiting for the fighting to start.

Using my helmet’s imaging system, I brought up a 3-D map of the battlefield which quickly displayed my side’s current situation. I had originally placed Captain Richard in command of our forward forces and gave the Command Center’s crew some simple orders to follow. As expected the Captain had taken the middle town of the battlefield, and true to his thickheaded nature, held the town with minimal casualties, as well as distracting the enemy. I quickly turned over to his channel and could hear the chaos of his precarious situation.

He was currently pinned down with no hope of retreat or advance, but in a relatively safe position. Besides that, he had the enemy distracted, and in the worst position that they could possibly be. As the Captain still held control of the town, the enemy had no choice but to hole up in the adjacent forest and plain. That gives me the opportunity I need to ambush them from the East with an armored charge and an aerial bombardment. Other than not bombing them to hell with artillery, I just really wanted to expend all the napalm that we had in our stores. After all, what good is a 1000 pound bomb if it has no explosives?

“Okay, is everyone ready?”

“HOO-RAH!”

Dammit…really should have toned down the volume on this headset.

“Adrian?”

“Da?”

“Charge when ready…”

“Thought you’d never ask…”

I could hear the pure glee in his voice as he gave orders to the surrounding vehicles.

“Remember to turn on your IFF’s when you reach speed,” I reminded him. Technically speaking, turning off your IFF is illegal in the rules of war, but if you go into the fine print, it actually says that you cannot attack without an IFF, but moving around without one is perfectly fine.

“Catch you in the rec. room later Mike?”

“Only if we win Adrian, only if we win.”

“Heh, if we lose it’ll be a miracle, and what I would give to see the other team’s faces when nearly a hundred enemy IFF’s pop up out of nowhere on their unprotected flank.”

“Well that’s what they get for being cocky, tovarishch.”

“Oh well, just remember to keep out of the fireworks as you surround them.”

“Can I do the honors?”

“Sure why not…”

“MEN! OPEN FIRE!”

(------------------------------------)

Argh! Damn this process is never painless is it?

I opened my eyes to see a sheet of black glass reflecting the image of my eyes. I reached up to tear off the simu-goggles and headset when I suddenly rammed my head into the ceiling of the simu-pod as the sharp pain of a leg cramp made me kick the bottom.

Tap…tap…tap

“You ok in there buddy?”

It took me few seconds to recognize the voice and the lid sprung open and I tumbled out.

“Bah…Adiran the hell are you doing dropping me out like that? You know I hate the taste of the floor.”

He gave me a puzzled look, “Don’t know man, it sounded like you were in pain there.”

I glared back at him, “It was just a leg cramp and an involuntary reflex to jump.”

I stood up and slowly limped over to the nearby lockers, quickly changing out of the simu-suit, and into a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt. I felt a tapping on my shoulder as I closed my locker and found a sheet of paper thrust into my face.

“Here are the results of the battle.”

I shut my eyes faster that a light-machine gun could cycle its charging handle. I wasn’t about to read the results of the battle when I could just as easily predict our score from my mental list of Friendly Deaths and Enemy Kills.

“Nope, I’m not going to look at it.”

“Oh come on man, it was our last game of the year, could you at least give your brain some down time?”

“No can do matey, if it’s not a challenge then I won’t have any fun.”

“Dammit,” cursed Adrian under his breath, “Okay then, let’s see just how accurate you…”

“101,497”

“What!”

“101,497”

“Damn how’d you know man, you’ve gotta tell me your secret.”

I smiled as I led Adrian out of the Simu-Barracks, as we called ‘em, and into the adjacent rec. room. If I knew my guys at all, then I could guess that as soon as I walked through the door I would get the traditional Congratulations, so instead I pushed Adrian through first and shut the door behind him.

SPLASH

“WHOO…”

“Dammit Mike get your ass in here so we can pie you!”

I laughed before opening the door a hair to see if I could get any intel on the situation before being surprised. But lo’ and behold the second I unlocked the door, it was yanked open and I took an apple pie to the face.

The ensuing party for the winners of the 50th annual Inter School Simulation Championship was beyond words. I had nothing to compare it to because it was so unlike what I had heard about it. The rowdiness of almost a thousand high school guys and girls was completely on the opposite pole of the quietly seated ceremony type deal that I had heard about, and besides that, we usually had parties in a Simulation room so no one was sick.

But it wasn’t ‘till the end of the party, and the extremely quick victors ceremony which resulted in a plaque and a medal to all the exceptional commanders, that things really got interesting.

“Oi Michael!”

I turned around in circles, nearly slipping on a patch of spilled soda, to find the source the voice, only to be confronted by 19 year old Captain Samuel Richards, or Rich.

“That was one hell of a stunt you pulled out there,” he said before pulling me over to a corner, “If you hadn’t had the decoys in place we would have been overrun for sure.”

I opened my mouth to reply when he shook his head and pointed towards the main doors.

“That reminds me, there’s and official called Mr. D. here to see you.”

This I raised my eyebrow to, it wasn’t everyday that a War Game official approached a student personally, usually it was a public reward, or an attempt to offer sponsorship. I myself was almost famous for turning down sponsorships, because I had single handedly brought my school’s WG economy from almost rock bottom to one of the highest in the country.

I had managed small simu-businesses in my freshmen year, then advanced to a fully fledged corporation by the end of my sophomore year, where I was invited to manage the school’s War Game Military during the summer. From there I made quick advancements through the ranks and I was soon leading small forces into…actually before I continue I should probably explain War Games shouldn’t I?

{--------------------------------}

The War Games are a way to manage school and city rivalries and to control school funding. The War Games Rank of a school determines what amount of extra funding the school would be granted for its equipment and curriculum. It starts at the high school level and continues through college and even to the political level. Should there be a dispute between countries a War Games tournament can be held to solve the dispute, but sometimes the campaigns would last longer than the official negotiations.

There are some major points to WG as well. The whole system is run from a simulated world where people hook up in Simu-pods and gain full body control of their avatars. If someone wishes to go into the military, they start out in WG, if someone wishes to become a mechanic, they start out in WG, if someone wants to manage a business, they start out in WG. The digital world is so realistic that what you do in it becomes almost a sort of muscle memory, but there is no substitute to real exercise.

So one of the restrictions is that your Simu-Character will match your real self, if you are fat, if you’re athletic it will have an effect. The only exception is when a person is crippled. They regain movement and it’s become so, that you can manage your entire livelihood from a simu-character, but you have to manage with some restriction, which I will not go into detail because there are too many.

{-------------------------------------}

I left the Captain to his own devices as he celebrated his last War Games, and quickly walked to the door before I became to target of any remaining pies. Though upon passing through the door I froze from the sight of Adrian being there as well. He is one of my closest friends and occasionally switched between active roles as a tank commander and a fellow strategist.

“Hey Michael, he called for you too.”

“Yeah,” I pulled him off to one side, “What exactly do you know about this guy?”

“Not much really, all I’ve been told is that he wants to ask us some things.”

“Yeah well, we’ll see about that.”

*Cough*

“If I may make your acquaintances good sirs?”

I stared at this Mr. D and took in his appearance for the first time. He was wearing a black and white checkered suit and had a top hat along with a cane. Though the things that popped out the most about him, was that he had an accent that sounded like he came from 18th century England. Oh…and the fact that he had almost bleached white hair was not to be missed.

“What exactly are you here for Mr…”

“Discord please…call me Discord, or Mr. D. if it so suits you.”

I turned to Adrian and I could tell he was thinking the same thing.

This guy is a loon.

“Oh!”

I ignored the funny-looking man as I glanced sideways at Adrian. We'd known each other for years, so we could technically hold a conversation with subtle movements of our eyes, shoulders, hands, or even sighs... Yeah, loud as we may seem sometimes we really were getting too good at talking without speaking.

“I would like your assistance in…”

Well what do you think?

We should at least hear the poor guy out.

Why?

“I am willing pay a great amount of precious metals and gems in return for…”

From the sounds of it there’s a good sum of money involved.

No! Remember the last time we had a sponsor? He nearly made us forfeit a match as one of his conditions.

Yeah, then you tricked him out of the money and got him fired.

It was a deliberate sabotage attempt by another school. It was in clear violation of the rules!

“You see, my subjects have been enslaved, and subject to a great amount of discrimination by the ruling population of…

Wait a sec, did he just say slavery?

“This land resides in an alternate dimension on another planet, and seeing your skills I would like to hire you two on for…”

Yep, and I’m pretty sure he also said another dimension.

Is this guy on drugs or what?

“Please…we desperately in need of assistance. It is only because we are different in form that we have become outcasts…”

Actually the question shouldn’t be whether or not he’s on drugs, but whether or not he’s talking about the War Games in the first place.

“The two main factions of our land are currently at war as the two royals compete for dominance over the land…”

Okay fine let’s figure out if he’s sober first, and then let’s listen to his conversation completely.

“Um..excuse me?”

We both turned our attention back to him as he glanced between us with an annoyed look.

“Were you two even listening to a single thing I said?”

“Yes sir we were, now if you would like we could take this conversation elsewhere.”

“Oh…yes of course.”

Hey, I'm not saying I believe him, but would you really give up the chance to travel to another world?

Nope...but then again, if we're going to get involved in a real war, then we need to have all the facts.

Oh well...but if what he says is true then it'll be worth it in the end.

Heh...then we can be considered mercenaries huh?

Hey! I prefer liberators.

If we're getting paid, then its the same damn thing! Besides something doesn't sound right.

Yeah, if he's on the oppressed faction, then how in the hell can he have enough money?

I don't know...to the victors go the spoils 'eh?

...So he might not have the money?

Let's just hear him out, and if he's not the level we can always report him.

And if he is telling the truth and we not anywhere near home?

Then we can always stab'im in the back...

That's cold...

Blame the desensitization of the Wars Games.

You always blame the War Games.

...