The computer was on; the Internet connection was up; and a packet of potato chips was lying on the table, ready to be emptied in the arch of few hours by a single pony.
Button Mash moved his chair next to the writing desk, put a pillow on the chair, and sat down: thanks to the fact that the next day wad patron saint's festival of St. Biagio, the colt didn't have the duty to go to sleep early for to go to school the next day; and instead, he had all the night for playing video games. As he scanned with his eyes the desktop of his computer, full of icons of the various video games gathered over time, the colt thought what game to play, and if playing online or offline.
After some time, he managed to make the list smaller starting from a huge list, then he thought about what game to pick between the three very good games: Europa Universalis IV, a Grand Strategy game, (in)famous for its rather long multiplayer sessions; Empire Earth, a quite old, yet still very good, real-time strategy game; and Counterstrike: Global Offensive, a first person shooter.
All three seemed perfect for a night of gaming fun, and so, Button returned to ponder again his decision: after some thinking, he discarded Europa Universalis IV, since he didn't feel in mood for a long and rather complex game; and, after restricting the choice to Counter-Strike and Empire Earth, since he still couldn't decide which one, the brown colt proceeded to take out from its case his tie-breaker in this kind of situations.
A silver 1000 Lire coin, gift of his mother, to do heads or tails: after opening the case with a little key, the brown pony took out the con carefully; inspected both sides; then said to himself, slightly before tossing the 1000 Lire in the air: "Heads Counter-Strike, Tails Empire Earth.", then tossed the coin in the air.
Hitting the wooden desk with its distinctive sound, the out-of-course coin showed tails, meaning that Button was going to play EE.
Sighing, the colt took the mouse in his hoof, clicked on the icon labeled as "Empire Earth Lobby Client"; logged in as Xerses03; and, few seconds later, he was in the lobby.
The tab that contained the available games, usually empty, that night was swarming of games, and the chat, usually dead silent, was abuzz: as he scrolled the list of available games, Button Mash looked at the settings for a Huge Mediterrean Deathmatch Atomic-Future game: it wasn't long, before finding a game in the list.
After copying the IP; effectively starting the game; went to "Other Multiplayer" section of "Multiplayer"; and added the game's IP to the list of the direct connection games, Button proceeded to join the game.
Once he filled the vacant spot, Button looked at the other players, for see if it was a team game or a ree-for-all: it was the former, and so, the colt took the last place left in the teams, in the Team 2; and, after doing so, he checked his status as "ready".
Then the game was launched, leaving the loading screen behind.
"Let's give them an airshow, La Spezia style !", said Button to himself, while he waited the game to load up.
"Xerses ! What are you waiting for ? My ass is getting owned right here !", wrote InvictaCochlear, the green player, in the Team Chat, while she was holding desperately a position between to cliffs near her base.
"Sorry, I was too much occupied into harras the enemy economy. Give me some seconds, and my powerful artillery will assist you !": the colt clicked the "1" key, for select immediately the group of units assigned to the key, then proceeded to send it to the rescue of the ally. After doing so, Button heard for the nth time the same phrase "We are under attack !".
Sighing, the brown colt checked the minimap for red crosses, sign that a unit or a structure was attacked in the area, and saw said red cross near the shore of his base, with his units in green, and enemy's in gray: with a swift move, Button moved the camera to the area under the attack of the gray player, and, thanks to the composition of the enemy fleet, namely, ten transports, ten frigates and twenty battleships; he could tell what was going on: an attempt an amphibious assault.
Quickly, Button called the group of ships bind to the key "6", and, trying to avert the landing, moved all of them to the soon-to-be landing zone and the adjent piece of water.
"Dingdong ! Who's there ? It's me, Germany, can I enter ? Of course yes: I have the ships and the tanks !".
That was the taunt sent on the chat by the gray player, name's TelefonRat: as soon Button Mash read that message, the shore that was under attack was full of enemy tanks, that demolished the four ports; the naval base; and the two towers built there. Button went with the camera to his base, selected one AT Helicopter, then double-clicked it for select all the AT Helicopters built so far.
Then, with around 15 selected units, he sent the order of patrolling the area around the bases, so to compensate the lack of ground defenses in the bases.
That done, he put on production queue of all the airports three Paradrop Planes, and five War Helicopters; the he clicked on all the barracks, and queued some more Bazookas and Medics.
When he finished to do so, Button moved the camera to the units he had sent in help of his ally InvictaCochlear... only to realized that he arrived too late: the line of defense of his ally had fallen.
"Xerses, words cannot explain how much I hate you right now."
The purple invader, "LOLWUTBBQ", answered on the chat:
"You know, Invicta, there is a reason for why the Ancient Greece is labeled as a civilization for the Early game. And not for historical accuracy."
While the units of Invicta moved towards the BBQ ones, she said: "I thought I could dominate the seas !"
"Well, you didn't even TOUCHED the sea in the whole game !" said LOLWUTBBQ in the chat "What you were waiting for ? The end of the game ?"
"Shut up."
As the conversation went on, the purple kept going out from the now-obscured piece map, while the green dots disappeared, and shrouded the map: it seemed that no force on the whole Earth could possibly stop the purple "bleeding".
Button went there to check what was the army composition of LOLWUT.
The answer got a chuckle from Button: the purple player was using mostly tanks and infantry. Button's rescue team was composed by around ten pieces f artillery, and twenty anti-tank cannons: with some use of tactic, the brown colt could stop the enemy.
And so, he proceeded to make the Artillery blind-fire over a tight spot in the woods near Invicta's base, so to hit as many enemy infantry as possible; and tried to place at the sides the anti-tank artillery, so to destroy the remaining enemies passing through. Somehow, it worked: the infantry fall with screams of pain, as it passed in the zone bombarded by the shells of Button's artillery; and the tanks got either destroyed by the same artillery killing the soldiers, or scrapped by the anti-tank cannons at the exit of the woods.
Button could not even rejoice his (fairly easy) victory, that the vocal message of "Under Attack" was heard again. Seeing the red cross near his base, Button moved his camera again, and this time, he headed for the barracks, sure to find there all the units he queued before.
While he selected his units of bazookas for attack the invading tanks, a simple, yet effective idea stroke his mind. Use the helicopters for counter-strike the gray base. Maybe TelefonRat forgot to build AA defenses; or maybe he didn't have any unit capable of attacking air; or, if he had some anti-air units in the base, maybe they weren't sufficient to stop an aerial assault.
However, if the opponent did prepared himself for an aerial assault, then Button was going to lose all the forces made in the span of half an hour; and it was going to be incredibly difficult to recover from such a loss.
However, considered the huge navy that the gray developed during the rest of the game, it was unlikely that he had also time to build up defenses.
And so, Button, done giving the attack order to the bazookas; clicked on the numeric key "4", and sent a hostile move" order to the selected units. He repeated the same thing for the group "9", but sent ti to deal with the gray assault to his base; told to Invicta to "Hold the line with the purple player"; then Button proceeded to follow the group "4" in their movements towards the enemy base; and finally sent his support units back to his main base.
They first flew over the enemy docks and naval yards: the zone of sea nearby them was swarming with battleships, frigates and subs, but no cruisers, and thus, no AA fire. Since Button gave to the helicopters a hostile move" order, said units started to attack the ships of the gray player, causing them to scatter around, as the automatic IA tried to avoid the attacks of Button's units.
The brown colt once again selected the group of helicopters, and, this time, gave the order of attack the docks and the yards, instead of the ships coming from said buildings.
The audio warning of "We are under attack !" kept going on, but Button ignored it, for keep concentrating on the offensive that he was trying to pull of: he was certain that his defenses were enough to stop the assault of TelefonRat. Or, at least, stop him enough for exchange the favour, if the base got annihilated.
The helicopters dispatched the docks in few seconds, like he yards, and the citizens sent by the enemy to repair the structures.
Next stop: the enemy base, its position knew thanks to the scouting did earlier in the game. The selected helicopters flew over the settlements, who were promptly destroyed; over the towers, quickly demolished; and over the few tanks left behind, scrapped by the flying horde of Button.
Nothing could stop Button's attack, and TelefonRat could not do something for stop it...
Or he could ?
As the helicopters flew over the gates of TelefonRat base, the fog of war was eliminated, uncovering several Stinger infantry and AA Half-Tracks: as soon the helicopters were in range, the group started to fire at the helicopters, shooting them down.
Button reacted quickly, and, helicopter by helicopter, he gave the orders of attack to each singular enemy unit: war helicopters for the infantry, AT ones for the Half-Tracks. Naturally it worked, even if with some pretty heavy casualties.
Realizing that only half of his original attack force remained, and that the assault on his base failed, Button decided to come back to the base, selected the helicopters sent earlier there, and unite them with the assault force, for keep the destructive power at the max and so defeat TelefonRat.
Done giving the order, Button come back to his assault forces, and started to target the Factories and the Barracks, so to avoid such a group of AA units again.
The helicopters quickly razed the gray player's base, with great rage of the owner, who wrote in the chat:
"FUCK YOU XEXRSES !"
The brown colt answered, while tearing apart the last buildings of TelefonRat: "It's not my fault, if you play against a team composed by two Italy and one France, and you don't build Anti-air defenses."
The other enemy player wrote on the chat "I give up.", and quit; leaving InvictaCochlear and Button alone in the game, and thus, making them win.
Button exited from the match; closed the game; and shut off the computer.
After doing so, he turned off the light from the switch near to his bed, put himself under the blankets, and let the sleep taking him.
