Playing To Win

War games. War games never changed, the ways they are played do. The newest installment of the war series, ‘War 2’, features races besides ponies and griffons and allows for more diverse play styles. Of course most ponies play as the pony races anyways due to having learned the way to best use them from the original ‘War’, another reason was that some of the other races had kind of dark themes and most ponies were subconsciously drawn away from them. That wasn’t a problem for the creature taking part in this particular round though, she didn’t have that thought in the back of her mind that what she was doing is wrong, it was just a game after all.

While it was rare that a race that wasn’t pony had been chosen by the player, it was almost unheard of to play as the ‘unreformed changeling’ race. This meant that the implications of what the characters did hurt the fragile hearts of anypony who striped to play as them. It also meant that nopony knew how to play against this race, an advantage that this particular player used to its full.

Her swarms of untrained and technologically inferior changelings would only grow bigger with every player she vanquished and population she enslaved, similar to how the pony races grew stronger when they turned their defeated enemies into friends. The ‘untrained’ part was what really gave the unreformed changelings an advantage, as while the other races would have to train their troops in order to get them to do any sort of damage the unreformed changelings could simply be mass produced with speed that increased the longer the game went.

If all of the other players united early on and destroyed the hive before it became a threat then she would be virtually defenseless, but thankfully most of her opponents thought that removing a player from the game so early was rude and cheap. She didn’t have any trouble doing so and once she did the other players were too focuses on defending themselves to even think about wiping her out.

That was what usually happened at least. Our player recently changed from the Equestrian servers to the more selective ‘Canterlot-Ponyville’ servers as that is where she would be living very soon, she figured that learning her opponents already wouldn’t hurt.

And it didn’t, she stormed through the first couple matches with the same ease she usually did, actually finding them less challenging than normally.

This time though, this time she went up against somepony who was actually good at the game. A earth pony tribe player that went by ‘Butt0n M4sh’ has spawned next to her and immediately offered her a truce, surprising her by scouting way earlier than most other ponies. The request was accepted and honored, the game didn’t have an actual alliance system yet so this was simply a spoken pact between players. Both of them placed scouts in each others bases and simply left the other alone, soon they controlled half of the map between them while the players on the other half were fighting for what little scraps of resources they had left.

It was going to be easy mopping them up, followed by an epic war between the two massive empires.

Emphasis on ‘was’.

As she watched her ally build up his armies the changeling player quickly sent her swarms towards the weak half of the map in an attempt to grab as much land as she could before her ‘teammate’s’ troops got there. That was when ‘Butt0n M4sh’ surprised her with a move she thought ponies were incapable of: betrayal.

He let her swarm take over the other half of the map, using his ‘teammate’ being focused on conquering as a way to sneak his troops behind her main hive, the one where her Queen stayed foolishly undefended. The hive quickly fell and due to a ‘balancing mechanic’ so did the other hives, unable to function properly without the Queen. The changeling player watched as her swarms of drones hissed, shrieked and turned on each other in an attempt to steal whatever love was left, the the last survivors were covered in a purple light and emerged reformed. The words ‘’Butt0n M4sh Wins!’’ appeared on the screen as her bikes zoomed out just enough to show the earth pony warriors celebrating their victory on the ruins of the main hive.

The reformed changeling leaned back in her chair and brought the microphone closer to her mouth. “Good job dude!”

“You ain’t mad?” Asked a voice from her headphones.

“Mad? I’m impressed! I pulled some betrayals myself but that was simply beautiful! How did you know about the Queen thing?”

“Oh that? It was in the campaign.” The voice explained.

“Was it? Never played the thing myself, takes too long in my opinion. Anyway, good game and all that. Next time I’ll crush you.”

A snort could be heard from the other side. “Yeah right!”

The changeling was about to respond when some unseen timer ran out and the screen changed from a view of the map to the view of the main menu, cutting off her ability to speak with the one who finally defeated her. She went over to replays and started watching the game she just lost from Butt0n M4sh’s perspective, hoping to lean how to better play from his example.

It turns out that he didn’t have the same strange reservations as other ponies when he played games, while most of the others would sacrifice entire squads of guards to save a single citizen he actually sent a citizen out to scout, making two more and sending them out to further empires by the time the hive was discovered. He also made truces with these empires and it quickly turned out that he didn’t have a single enemy on the playing field, leaving him to build an army while all the others skirmished against each other or were falling to the changelings swarms. He then attacked his weakest allies one by one, leaving the unreformed changelings for last since he had enough troops to exploit their major weakness.

Such treachery has never been seen in a pony, or even a griffin for that matter. Whoever this Butt0n M4sh was he was either a pony who was deeply troubled or a gamer that plays to win. Probably the second one judging by how calm the talk with h8m after the game was, when a game finished it usually brung out the worst in a pony and opened an arsenal of inventive colorful language to them.

She was about to search for a new game when she heard a voice coming from downstairs: “Conscript! The foods ready!”

Hearing her caretaker call her name was a rare occurrence, mostly because he thought it wasn’t right to name a creature in such a way. Conscript counted herself lucky, she could have ended up with ‘Meatshield’, ‘Ram’ or even worse, a number. Apparently Queen Chrysalis has exhausted her knowledge of insect related words that once served as her pool of names for newborn changelings, she turned to what their purpose would be and then when she ran out of those names she went to numbers.

It was pretty obvious, Conscript was supposed to be used like one of the changelings she had control over in ‘War 2’, thankfully Thorax showed up before she grew to combat worthy size.

Anyway, the only times her caretaker called her by name was when she was in trouble or he had important news for her. Conscript had cut down on her bad habit of swearing, one she surprisingly picked up from the ponies she played against, and thus had no clue what she had done to be called by her name. The possibility of important news was there, but tomorrow was the day she was supposed to move to Ponyville so any last minute changes were unexpected.

She gently took her headset off and placed it on her bed before shutting down her console and leaving the room, she flew down the stairs and went towards the living room. The promise of food wasn’t a lie to get her downstairs, there was indeed a hayburger waiting for her on the table.

Her caretaker stared at her as she got settled down and prepared to eat her meal. “Conscript, your chitin.” Her caretaker reminded her for the fourth time that day.

Like always, Conscript looked down in confusion only for her eyes to go wide as she noticed the black chitin and the holes in her legs. If the form of a pre-reformation changeling allowed her to blush from embarrassment she would have. “Sorry, must have got in character again.”

Blue flames washed over her body and revealed a reformed changeling once they vanished. Black chitin was replaced with white while the plate protecting her wings turned a dark purple. Her torso plates and wings both were the same shade of slightly lighter purple.

Her caretaker gave a satisfied nod. “You stand out just as much as a pre-reformation changeling would.” He mused before gesturing to her hayburger, an obvious invitation for Conscript to stuff her face while he told her the news.

“There’s been a problem with your relocation.” He begins, causing Conscript to choke on her food a little “The Apples have informed us that the decision to take you in has been ‘made with too much haste and thus they would like to cancel’.”

“Cunts.” Was all the Conscript muttered when she stopped eating to get some air, her caretaker didn’t feel like telling her off for that one.

“But there is also good news! When I went to repost your moving request some mate gave it one look and instantly accepted, in fact she is waiting in the kitchen right now.”

Conscript spun around on her chair in order to face the kitchen. As if on cue, a cream earth pony mare with blue eyes and a brown mane and tail walked into the room, showing off the biggest genuine smile that both of the changelings in the room had ever seen.

Conscript instinctively looked over at her cutie mark so that she could disguise as her if the need arose, it was a red heart with a foal bottle on it. The mare was probably a foalsitter or something.

The mare, who may or may not be a foalsitter, enveloped the still ketchup covered changeling in a tight hug. A hug filled with enough love that the changeling choked on her food for the second time that day. The mare pulled back and said the one thing that neither of the changelings expected her to say: “So I heard that you like video games, that true?”

After sharing a glance with her current caretaker, Conscript hesitantly nods. The nod apparently sends the mare into overdrive as she scoops the changeling up and carries her up the stairs.

“Which rooms yours?”

“S-second door on the left.” Replied the dazed changeling.

The mare pushed open the door to the room and appraised the room. She didn’t check if it was tidy or for any school related items like she was expected to, instead she looked over at Conscript’s PonyBox and the case of ‘War 2’ that rested on top of it. She let out an ‘eep’ as she put the changeling down and drew her into another hug. “You’ll fit right in!”