Supreme Commander 2, Game 1; Nuclear winter

"Hello, viewers, and welcome to another livestream with Princess Luna, Edward, Leon, and company," Luna said into her headset.

Leon gave a grunt in affirmation. "Hey."

"I'm world famous," Eddy said.

"Yeah, nice try," Rainbow replied, giggling.

"We're here playing Supreme Commander 2 for the first time on a livestream," Luna went on. "It may be a few years old, but seeing as there is no third game in the series yet, and as some viewers have asked specifically for it, we've decided to play this game for your enjoyment."

"Rule one," Leon said, "Infinite mass glitch is illegal. No one uses it under any circumstances."

"Aw nuts," Eddy muttered, then laughed. "Kidding. I hate that one."

"Actually, that's the only rule," Luna added, "other than not using any other glitches that are common."

"Yeah. The game's almost unplayable for people who either don't know how to use it or don't care, one way or the other, to use it," Leon said ruefully. "Not quite as bad as World at War, but not that far off. People go to play a game, they get swamped in the first few minutes by a massive army."

"Indeed. Now, lets get down to business. Players must choose who they'll be paired up with and what factions they'll be playing."

"I'm UEF," Leon said. "Dark blue."

"UEF as well," Rainbow said. "Light blue."

"Cybran," Eddy said. "Red."

"Illuminate, green," Luna said. "Twilight?"

"Illuminate, and I'll be purple."

"UEF," Shining Armor said, "and orange."

"I'm surprised," Leon said. "I thought you'd be Illuminate, having an interest in science, however small, yourself."

"I was thinking about it, but ultimately the UEF feels more... military."

"They're all military," Eddy pointed out.

"Yes, but UEF feels more like the disciplined kind of army that I'm used to."

"Most, if not all, units on the battlefield are robots," Leon pointed out. "In fact, I think that only your ACU has a living pilot."

"Still..." Shining paused, as if to clear his thoughts. "We've chosen our factions. Who's going to be on which team?"

"Me and Leo are together," Eddy said at once.

"I call Princess Luna," Rainbow said loudly.

"I guess I'll go with them," Twilight decided.

"And that leaves me to go with Leon and Edward," Shining said. "Hope you've got your game on today, little sister."

"You're on, BBBFF," the purple unicorn replied. Brother and sister giggled for a moment.

"That's settled," Luna confirmed. "Now, which style of gameplay shall we use? Supremacy or assassination?"

"Supremacy," Leon, Eddy, Shining, and Rainbow said, almost at once, while Twilight said, "Assassination."

"And finally, I'll choose a map... done. If everyone is ready...?"

Affirmative answers came back.

"Right, we'll start then."

Leon waited as the loading screen came up, which eventually gave way to a battlefield.

It was the Iskellian Coast map. Land and air units were definitely useful here, but the map had more water than usable land. Naval units were practically a given. Leon smiled. He loved naval battles in games, although he was fond of UEF land units too, in particular the Rockhead tank. He was the southern-most player, with Shining in the middle and Eddy to the north.

He set his engineers to build Mass Extractors nearby, and his ACU to build a naval factory. After these were finished, he constructed a couple generators to gather energy.

"Any ideas for our course of action?" Shining asked.

"I'll start harassing them with air," Eddy answered. "I'll build a bunch of fighter-bombers for that. I assume Leo is going to focus on building a fleet of battleships?"

"Yep," Leon answered. "Going for naval upgrades first, then structural. If I can, I'll build some long range artillery."

"Not a bad idea. I'll build some land units to attack and harass them," Shining offered.

"Good. Why aren't you trying to lead the team, seeing as you're a military officer? I thought you were currently engaged in a war with Changelings right now as well?"

"Actually, it didn't come to war."

"What?" Leon asked, interested, as his ACU was set to building a land factory. "How did you...?"

"Chrysalis saw that she was outnumbered right away. We'd have beaten her in open battle; they had a few modern firearms, but most of them carried spears and swords, and most of those were rusty. So she decided to negotiate. In exchange for their continued independence, and our allowing their harvesters to continue a peaceful means of gathering emotional energy, she agreed to sign a nonaggression pact between our nations. She also had to agree to pay for the damage her invasion caused and renounce war and aggressive actions as a means to gather energy."

"You forbade them to have an army?"

"What? No, no, no. She agreed simply not to use aggression to get what her hive needs. About a tenth of the reparations have already been paid, mostly by manner of having Changeling workers build in construction jobs. And no, they aren't slaves or unpaid servants, either; they get emotional energy to, er, eat, I guess the proper word for it is, and they get the same monetary wages from the boss on the site as a pony would... though what they'd do with money is beyond me."

"So, crisis averted?" Eddy asked.

"Crisis averted. It was close, though. She was quite resistant to our demands. She'd never expected her invasion to fail, nor for an army as well-equipped as ours was to come upon her doorstep, both of which were the game breakers in our favor. They still get to go through their own domestic affairs - again, I'm not sure just how their society is oriented. Our intelligence isn't clear on that, considering that we have no practical way for an agent to sneak in, as a disguised pony would be detected right away. They can't take energy from one another, or at least the normal drones can't, but they can take it from any civilized being, which allows them to keep infiltration of their home from happening."

"I see."

"As for the first question... It's true I'm a member of the Equestrian military, but there are other commanders out there better than me. And I'm not playing with members of the Royal Guard; I'm playing with you guys, civilians. And I'm not on duty at the moment, so..."

"Okay. Well, in any case, we really need to get cracking," Leon said. He ordered his engineers to build a couple research labs to speed up the rate he got research points. He wanted to research the Poseidon class battleship very quickly. His ACU he set to work building a second naval factory to speed up production.

Of course, there were problems with producing enough material. Mass gathered much, much more slowly than energy did, and mass extractors could only be constructed at certain points. Neither produced enough in the early game to satisfy him, but other sites outside the areas that players spawned were seriously at risk of enemy attack.

The next three minutes were further spent on developing his base and researching technologies.

Ed's base was made up of two air factories and the usual number of energy generators and mass extractors. Two anti-air towers stood at the edge of the northernmost factory. Shining had built three land factories, the typical number of mass extractors, and numerous energy generators. No one had a very big military yet. Ed had about five fighter-bombers flying around, and Shining had seven Rockheads and three Titan bots. Leon was in the process of building his first battleship, which came out a couple minutes later.

"Anyone going to build unit cannons?" Eddy asked.

"I'll definitely build one," Shining said. "Its good for launching raids, and that will help destabilize them."

"Maybe later," Leon answered. "I want to get my navy rolling first."

"And what do you consider "rolling" in this case?"

"Ten battleships at the very least."

"That'll take a while," Eddy answered, and unfortunately this was true. The problem wasn't the lack of facilities or technology, it was the fact that resources, mass in particular, didn't presently allow him to build more than one battleship at a time, as they were expensive.

On the other hand, they were very powerful. The ship he had constructed was already a good unit, great for bombarding bases and armies; other techs in the naval branch would give it even greater defensive and offensive capabilities.

"I sure hope the other side doesn't rush nukes," Leon muttered.

"I don't think that will happen," Shining reasoned. "Luna is livestreaming this; she'll want a conflict of at least moderate length for the pleasure of the viewers."

"Right. Well, there's always some way to do that that leaves us SOL."

"I hear that. Get the upgrade to your ACU that prevents it from going nuclear if it gets destroyed as soon as you can."

Yeah, I'll do that. I'm hoping it'll survive, though. They can become pretty useful."

"I'm going to try building the Proto-Brain as soon as possible," Eddy put in. "Research king coming through."

"Robot man coming through, you mean," Leon joked.

"Eh, save it. I'll be the most scientifically advanced player in the game."

"You realize that if you know that, they will too, right?"

"Yeah, but what can they do about it? I'll be too busy bombing their base."

"They'll have built shields by then."

"Not enough. Not enough."

Leon decided to let it go at that. But another concern gripped him. "And what if they decide to nuke us before we're ready?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to try that if I were them," Eddy said with amusement.

'Going to nuke them back?"

"Well, in a way. You'll see."

Leon watch as two more battleships came off the assembly line. He sighed at the thought of the mass they'd cost to build, but they were worth it. He'd gotten the tech that gave them an extra row of guns, and soon he'd research the anti-missile upgrade as well. He also went and built five Mastodon cruisers, which, though poor at long range bombardment, were better at killing air units.

By now, all three of them had built up a decent proto-military; Leon with his navy, Shining with his army, and Eddy with about twenty fighter bombers. Leon's biggest worry was that someone on the other team - Twilight, mostly - would discover their intentions and counter them. He had no doubt that the purple unicorn had built a ton of research centers already, and as the Illuminate didn't have to worry about naval technologies, she'd have better air or land technology than him and Shining already.

Of course, the Cybran Proto-Brain gave them twenty points of research per second without having to excessively build research centers. Eddy would probably be able to keep up with her.

Eddy began his raid a couple minutes later. "Tally ho, chaps!" he said as he sent his force on its way.

By now, his base consisted of three air factories and a land factory, as well was a number of research stations. Shining's base was just the opposite; three land factories and one for air, as well as a single sea factory. Leon had three naval factories an a couple land ones.

"I'll start my ground raid," Shining said.

"Hold up, my battleships will support you," Leon said.

"Fine," Ed grumbled. "But your units are too slow."

Apparently, Leon wasn't the only one to think Twilight the biggest threat. Eddy concentrated his fire on two of her research stations and quickly destroyed them. He took anti-air fire from the ground, but not enough to induce him to stop his attack.

Shining's attack took longer to arrive. But his own assault met with success. His army of twenty tanks, about the same number of assault bots, and artillery quickly wrecked a shield generator and then destroyed a land factory. Some purple units attack them as they did so - Leon noted that they already had shields. But these weren't enough to halt the attack. Shining's army suffered a beating, but in the end the enemy force was obliterated. A moment later, Leon's ships began blasting away at one of Luna's research stations, largely as a distraction, though he wasn't against killing an enemy's ability to research.

The response came quickly. Luna didn't have many research stations up, but she had units. She had a wing of fighter-bombers, which attacked the bombarding battleships. Leon's cruisers shot down several, but not before one of his ships was down to red health and two others were in the yellow.

While the battle between sea and air units was ongoing, two of Luna's research stations and an air factory had been destroyed, along with a mass extractor. A luckless engineer that had tried to fix the latter had been squashed like a bug by the shells sent downrange.

The attackers were suffering significant losses, though. In spite of the damage that had been done, the surviving factories pumped out enough cheap units to halt the land and ground attacks. Leon lost two of his battle ships and three cruisers before he decided that it was best to withdraw. "I'm pulling back," he stated.

"Yeah, I'm down to eight planes," Eddy agreed.

"I'm down to three tanks and two bots. I think retreat would be best."

All three of them withdrew. They'd left a decent amount of destruction in their wake; The enemy's unit production would be lower, and during the raid, when all three attacking players had been focused on the battle, they found that their mass and energy had been allowed to stockpile, giving them decent resources with which to build their bases and armies. However, the downside was that their own armies had been battered in the fighting. The surviving units had gotten some veterancy, which made them stronger, but the destroyed units would have to be replaced.

Leon set to work building three more battle ships and four more cruisers. He also upgraded his factories, so that they had shields, anti-air defenses, radar, and missiles, as well as constructing a number of shield generators, as well as heavy anti-air and ground defenses.

Leon finished most of his naval research and began to work on his buildings. In particular, he wanted to get heavy artillery in order to bombard the enemy bases with without having to close with an army. Of course, shields in sufficient number could block this sort of attack, but it would be an annoyance for the enemy, and the mass and energy necessary to build shield generators were resources that could not be used to build factories or units... or anything else useful.

All three of them began focusing on building more turrets to counter enemy attacks. Personally, Leon didn't want to suffer the sort of attack they'd just subjected their enemy to.

But, except for a few skirmishes between small groups of units sent to reconnoiter, the attack didn't come the way they'd expected it to. "Strategic launch detected."

"Oh great, here we go," Leon muttered. "Nuke fest."

Leon zoomed out. The missile had been launched from Rainbow's base, and was heading right for Shining's base. He watched the radiation symbol that indicated a nuclear missile make its way diagonally across the map.

It came closer and closer...

And suddenly, it changed direction.

"What the..."

Eddy began laughing.

"...You got the DLC pack, didn't you?" Shining asked.

'Yep."

"And that's why you kept having engineers build near my base," Leon noted.

"Yep. Nuke redirectors."

"What the hay!?!" Rainbow said loudly as the missile streaked toward her own base.

"I warned you that might happen," Twilight said in an annoyed sort of way, and the pegasus could easily imagine her rolling her eyes.

The missile came right down on top of the silo she'd launched it from - where she had two more queued up - and vaporized it, along with a go third of her base.

"Oh for... Rrrrrrrr!"

"I suppose this makes our future plans of attack more simple," Luna observed. "We'll hit them the usual way; with units and artillery."

"Illuminate launchers won't reach them," Twilight noted solemnly.

"Yes, but they will prevent the other side from setting up buildings too close to us. In the meantime, I think we should each build anti-nukes, to prevent them from trying the same trick on us."

"Agreed," Twilight replied, as Rainbow stared at the ruins of a good-sized portion of her base.

"Well, that escalated quickly," Leon noted as the missile blew up part of Rainbow's base.

"Yep. But I don't think they'll just sit there and let us nuke them back," Shining said, thinking out loud. "They'll build anti-nukes just as fast as they can research and build them."

"And that will take up a lot of their resources," Leon noted. "On the other hand, maybe they'll position more nukes in remote locations and attempt to bomb us from there. If I read the wiki right, those nuke redirectors can be overwhelmed."

"Sadly true," Eddy said. "Had that happen in my last game. The other guy lost five of his launchers, but three more got through and wrecked me."

"Better be careful, then. But still, there's only so much land on this map."

"Yeah."

Leon built more battleships, bringing his total up to eleven, along with twenty cruisers. He also had a small land army, but he'd mainly dealt with the threat of land and air attacks by building numerous shield generators, as well as dozens of common turrets and a few small artillery turrets. At sea, he was determined to be unbeatable.

He started work on an Atlantis II Experimental Carrier, a submersible with great attack power against land and sea units and buildings, though it had no anti-air capabilities. It could produce air units as well, making it a mobile factory. He hoped to build a couple of these, though he intended for battleships to be his main force, as the Atlantis had less than half the range a battleship did.

"Any progress on your prison?" Leon asked in conversational tones as he continued to build up.

"On Prison Architect? Oh yeah," Eddy answered. "Probably not the kind I wanted. I had to reload and start part of it over again."

"What happened?" Shining asked.

"Well, we - that is to say, I - received this legendary prisoner, Kevin something or other, the kind of guy that breaks down his cell door every morning, kills five guards for a work out, survives being shot and does it all over again the next day. You know who I mean?"

"Yeah..."

"I had so much trouble with him that I decided to get rid of him. Problem was, he was taking shotgun rounds as if they were only tasers; the bloke would only get wounded. So I asked myself, what could I do to get him out of the way? And I decided to set up a metal detector next to the showers and remove one of the drains while he was there."

"Uh oh," Leon murmured.

"Oh indeed. Got rid of him, alright, but ended up electrocuting about twenty five other prisoners to death with him, as well as the workman who took out the drain. I got removed from power and thrown in my own prison."

"You deserved it," Shining quipped.

"Maybe. What would you have done?"

"Chain and ball, all four limbs. Have armed guards bring him food and whatever medicine he needed. If he tries to attack, stun him and knock him unconscious."

"Yeah, the problem being this is one of those guys who regularly break down steel doors, smash walls, and set their own cell on fire. Also, chaining someone up isn't possible in the current alpha... yet."

"As a pony who values law and order, I can't say I approve of your way of dealing with the situation."

"Oh come on, you guys deal with crooks every day, how can you take their side?"

"I'm not, not in the sense that I approve of their actions either, at least not those that got them sent to prison. But electrocuting half your prison to death just to get rid of one guy is just excessive, especially seeing how twenty six people who were innocent in the matter died."

"All but one of them were convicted felons."

"And how much trouble did you get from them? Or from that member of your staff?"

"...The guy got what he deserved."

"And so did you, apparently. And you don't have to deal with magic when your prisoners try to escape."

Leon saw a shell come toward his base from up north. Rainbow had recovered enough to set up a long range artillery building, which was slowly but steadily pumping out shells. The rounds didn't get through the many shields the southern team had over their bases, but you didn't need to use mass and energy to fire one of those big guns. If you got twenty of them together, they could do some damage, which, considering the weight of the barrage, would be difficult to repair. They weren't as destructive - or accurate - as nukes, but a shell couldn't be redirected, only blocked. And enough artillery could get through any shield.

Of course, Rainbow was the only one with artillery that was really dangerous. Twilight and Luna were playing as the Illuminate, who had no real long range weapons. Their missile launcher - which Leon liked to refer to as a SCUD, seeing as it fired energy missiles rather than shells - had short range. The Illuminate also had no navy, though their land units could hover over the ocean. While this allowed them to concentrate research and production on land and sea units, it kept them from striking back in any meaningful way until they got right on top of their enemy. Illuminate units - including their ACU - could teleport, and that was definitely annoying to have to deal with.

The only Illuminate Experimental Leon usually had any respect - and fear - for was the Loyalty Gun, which reprogramed opposing land and naval buildings and units to join the side that had made the gun. Luckily, this was a building that couldn't move, but the speed with which the gun could convert opposing units was devastating. Leon had encountered players who used the Loyalty Gun offensively, building it close enough to their enemies' bases so it could reprogram turrets to shoot the very side that had made them, unhinging a defense and turning the game upside down. No doubt Twilight would have some idea of how to use such a weapon. He hoped his battleships would see - and, more to the point, blast - any attempt to utilize the building in such an offensive manner.

Well, anyway, two can play that game. He began building heavy artillery of his own, as well as building more research stations. He also built more shield generators, and got the techs that gave some, though not all, his normal buildings turrets of their own.

Leon wasn't the only one on his team to build heavy artillery. Eddy built some of his own, and after a few minutes, both sides were hammering each other, though the southern team definitely had an edge.

"Anyone going to build land Experimentals?" Ed asked.

'I will," Shining said. "Actually, I've already got a couple of Fatboys."

"Excellent. I'll build some Soul Rippers to go with that."

Leon looked at the enemy base. He could see the buildings that had been there during the raid, but large numbers of unidentified signatures - some in motion - were unknown. He could only guess what they were. Of course, their team had radar, as well as sonar, but those only revealed the existence of buildings and units, not their identity.

"Got a fleet of ships moving in from the north," Eddy announced suddenly.

"Ships, or Illluminate units?"

"Ships, I think. Signatures are too far apart to be tanks and anti-air."

"Rainbow built her own navy, then," Shining deduced. "And of course she built it on the other side."

"Not to worry; she's not the only one who can build ships."

A small Cybran fleet engaged the hostile UEF fleet. While it wasn't enough to halt the enemy advance, it did well enough to hold them up until Ed's fleet of fighter bombers began their attack. Several of Rainbow's ships went to the bottom.

"Uh oh," Leon said, looking at the new radar signatures coming from the north. "Definitely Illuminate units."

"Yeah. Little do they know, I've got LEGS."

With that, Eddy's battleships and destroyers - those that had survived the engagement - went straight for land. Once there, three pairs of legs on each ship unfolded, allowing them to scramble up from the sea and onto the land, still firing their guns.

"Nice to have a navy that can do that," Leon observed. "I think we left them alone too long, though."

"Indeed. I'll build a few Krakens and some more of... well, some more of everything. And nukes, too, can't forget them."

"I'll be building some, too," Leon answered.

'They'll be sure to have built anti-nukes by now," Shining warned.

"But those defenses can be overrun," Leon argued. "And because none of them are Cybran, they can't redirect nukes. The worst that happens is that we waste mass and energy for no results, and our bases remain intact. At best, we kill them their entire team off."

"Sounds... extreme."

"It's not like we're electrocuting prisoners," Leon pointed out. "And Rainbow tried to do us in not long before."

"I guess it makes sense. But they'll shoot down quite a few of them."

"We'll try and take their attention off the nukes, then," Leon offered. "We'll fight them conventionally, take out their anti-nukes now and then, and wreck their factories."

"If they don't do the same to us."

The battle in the north continued. Although the individual Illuminate tanks were no match for battleships, and had a short range to boot, there were a lot of them. Shining's army - including his Fatboys - moved up to engage them. Both Twilight and Luna were pouring in their armies. Every time a unit was destroyed, another came up to take its place. Here and there, groups of units teleported around the battlefield. Rainbow's remaining ships pitched in as well.

For whatever reason, they hadn't attempted to attack Leon. Some of his ships were close enough to bombard the enemy, but even so, they couldn't exactly walk on land like Cybran ships could. Leon looked at the map, wondering whether an attack on the enemy bases was a good move, or whether it would leave his own base and those of his allies open to attack.

That question was answered quickly. A large land army began moving in. It had to be Rainbow's ground forces. They were backed up by a considerable number of air units, most of which were fighters, though some bombers and gunships had been tossed in as well. She was going to try to attack while the others were engaged.

"Strategic launch detected."

Leon watched as another nuke - this one coming from Twilight's base - rose and started making its way southward... toward his fleet.

"That's not going to happen," he said firmly, and gave orders for his fleet to move.

The nuke did come down... but not on top of his fleet directly. The nuke did vaporize a few ships, the ones either too slow or too blocked by other warships to escape in time, but the vast majority escaped in time.

The enemy land army approached the southern bases. It was of a fairly decent size, and it also had Experimentals of its own; several Illuminate Urchinow Assault Blocks and a couple Fatboys.

He set his ships to fire at once, but several of them were out of range and needed to maneuver back into position.

So that was her plan... force my ships to move, so they'd be out of range when they made their main attack.

However, the enemy force - except for the Assault Blocks - was coming directly south, toward his own base. Either the other side perceived his weakness on land or thought he wasn't willing to fire near his own buildings.

"Yeah... problem with that thinking is..." He went over to a nuke silo he'd constructed, clicked on it, targeted the area where the enemy force was about to go, and hit the button.

"Strategic launch detected."

A nuke rose up out of the silo, flew a relatively short distance, and dropped right on top of the enemy force. The explosion instantly killed most of the units that had been approaching - including both the enemy Fatboys and an Assault Block - as well as several of Leon's own buildings and one of the redirectors Eddy had built for him.

"I'm not going to lose just because a couple of my own buildings get in the way. Hope that sends a message."

Twilight stared at the nuclear explosion that had just claimed most of Rainbow's army. "Did he seriously use a nuke to stop us? Even with his own buildings at risk?"

"Yeah," Rainbow said, sounding surprised.

"But he did succeed in stopping our offensive," Luna put in. "Which makes it an effective tactic. He's already rebuilding, and I think I spied an energy converter, so he'll have plenty of mass to rebuild with."

"And now my Assault Blocks are getting blown to bits by naval firepower," Twilight sighed. "I'm probably going to lose the rest of them."

"I think we should withdraw for now," the Princess advised, "before we lose the rest of our armies... and before either Edward or Shining Armor get the same idea Leon did."

"Or before Leon just takes it upon himself to blow us up himself," Rainbow muttered.

The last Assault Block exploded under the rain of shells. At the same time, what remained of the enemy army began to fall back.

"We got 'em!" Eddy shouted triumphantly.

"For now," Shining said. "I think we owe our survival partly to Leon. Although you might want to check before blasting half your own base into oblivion next time."

"It wasn't anywhere near half, and I'm not letting them just do what they want just because they're near my base," Leon responded.

Leon went on, rebuilding his navy and building up a moderately-sized land force, as well as rebuilding the stuff he'd wrecked with his own nuke. His army would be tough, but not invincible.

"Going to town and building a ton of nukes," Eddy announced. "Leo, I assume you have some?"

"Yeah. About five. I'm not launching until I have like twenty or more. Preferably more."

"That'd take forever," Shining noted.

"It's the easiest way to crush tem. Besides, if their base is resistant to an attack by our armies, it might not be such a bad idea. I've played the campaign and a number of multiplayer battles. If you get enough shields up, the base become practically invulnerable, even with Experimentals attacking it. What I'm worried about is Twilight, Luna, and their ability to build Loyalty Guns."

"Ooooooooh, right. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I hate those things."

"Don't we all. You do have that unit cannon up, right?"

"Oh yeah. It's at the back of the base. I'm just not sure where to fire it, or whether to build more, so I can land an army instead of a platoon."

"Another reason to delay our main attack. I guess you could launch small numbers of units to attack them at certain points. That might reveal whether they have a Loyalty gun or not."

"They'd know I've got a unit cannons once I started doing that, though. I want it to be a surprise."

"I've got a idea on how to go about that. Go ahead and build a few more of them. I think we can give them a surprise."

Leon continued to build. His navy soon grew to thirty battleships and sixty cruisers. He also built twenty submarines, to counter any underwater threat the enemy might have established. He had researched the entire naval tree, most of the structural tree, and was now working on land.

"Could send our ACUs up there," Eddy suggested. "They can't be converted."

"Nah, we'd lose them," Shining objected.

"In the middle of the enemy base, which is kind of the point."

"Not the best idea ever," Leon said. "Your ACU provides a lot of energy, and a little mass too, if I remember right. You'd lose those advantages if the ACU blew up."

"Not if I ejected from it first."

"Big problem with that line of thinking, though," Leon replied. "First, you'd have to eject before the ACU blew up, which means wither launching too early - and the enemy would see what you're doing stop shooting the ACU - or you'd leave it too late and the pod would get vaporized when your ACU went nuclear. And the enemy would try to target the escape pod in any case."

"I guess it would be difficult to eject at just the right moment. Still want to try it, though, if we find ourselves with no other choice."

The team continued to build. Eddy's air force grew massively. Shining built three more unit cannons, and built units inside them, ready for launch. Leon expanded his navy to fifty battleships and eighty cruiser, as well as a hundred land units and Experimental Fatboys; a King Kriptor he'd built towered over everything.

"You think we're ready?" Leon asked.

"I'm not sure," Eddy answered. "Maybe a few more nukes..."

"I think we might be able to go in without them," Shining replied. "But I'd better check real fast whether or not they have Loyalty Guns."

The stallion's units began launching, each unit cannon firing toward a different part of the enemy base. The began firing as soon as they hit the ground. Almost immediately, some of them were hit by white beams.

"Yep, just as we figured," Ed said tonelessly.

"And those things outrange my ships," Leon muttered. "Figures."

"And our artillery fire is doing jack all against their shields," the Briton went on. "That leaves us with few options. I mean, I could use my air units, but they'd take a long time to get through those shields, and Twilight's not stupid. She's likely built anti-air guns everywhere. Scratch that; they probably all have turrets everywhere. My air force is going to get wiped without leaving a dent."

"I hate fighting Illuminate," Leon groaned. "All because of that stupid conversion ray. It's overpowered."

"Which means that nukes are our best option of doing anything."

"Guess it can't hurt to try," Shining replied.

"How about this; we all select our launchers at the same time, fire at the same time, and each of us blows something off the face of the earth. Not every anti-nuke will hit something; I think I've seen them miss when you use them in the campaign."

"Right," Leon said, selecting all his nuke launchers. "Key turned, hand on the button-" here he put his cursor over the enemy base, near where one of the Loyalty Guns was supposed to be - "ready to launch."

"Three, two, one..."

Leon clicked.

A row of nukes arose from the launchers, rising up in the sky.

'"Oh wow, Leo, did you serious set up yours to spell 'LOL'?"

"Yep. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you... the LOL nuke." Leon watched the nukes fly through the sky, in rough formation of an L, then an O, then a second and final L. "I can't wait to see what this looks like in the livestream."

"Yeah, mine are just a giant, yellow and black ball. Might as well launch our next waves."

Leon kept clicking on parts of the enemy base until he had no more nukes left - and he'd built a lot, as had Eddy and Shining.

"Counterstrike incoming," Shining warned. "Enemy nukes coming our way."

And indeed, a several waves of nuclear missiles was headed for their base. Some would doubtless be thrown back by the nuke redirectors. Others would definitely find targets.

"Good thing our armies are on their way already, or we might not have much left," Leon noted.

"Probably won't have much left, but it doesn't matter much if they don't have anything left at all."

Since Leon agreed with that, he didn't reply. Their first wave of nukes were above their targets. Almost all were hit by anti-nukes and destroyed. Only two that he saw actually detonated. Those two still did massive damage, though. One of the Loyalty Guns, and the shields that had been built all around it, had been obliterated, as had the anti-nuke launchers that had protected it and any remaining missiles those silos had held. The second wave - with far less resistance than the first - struck. Leon watched as large portions of the enemy bases went up in mushroom clouds. Succeeding waves of missiles began to close in.

He winced, though, as he went back to his own base. The enemy nukes had obliterated most of his factories, almost his entire mass production, and much of his energy. Shining and Eddy had fared no better. Flashes of light and corresponding mushroom clouds went up, one after another. Leon quickly had his ACU hunker in order to protect it from the assault.

Their own nukes, however, had ripped the enemy base apart, killed off the majority of their units, and damaged their ACUs. Best of all, the Loyalty Guns were now nothing more than smoldering pieces of slagged metal.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Eddy urged.

Leon didn't have to be told twice. As their fourth and fifth wave of nukes hit, his battleships closed in, pounding away at the small number of isolated installations that were left. Eddy's air force closed in on Twiight's ACU, and Shining's land army was closing in for the kill.

With a roar and yet another flash of light, Rainbow's ACU exploded, destroying the small number of units she'd had clustered around and above it, along with Eddy's fighter bombers and gunships that had inflicted the fatal damage. Twilight's fell over as it died, but the commander's pod rose into the sky in an effort to escape. Fighter bombers quickly downed it before it could get anywhere. Luna, apparently deciding that enough was enough, walked her ACU into the middle of Shining's Army, where it blew up as well, destroying the majority of the force that had been attacking it. Enemy nukes that had been redirected began to fall in the middle of the base, further weakening the attackers but also wiping out some of the few buildings that had survived the bombardment.

The game ended moments later as Leon went back to the allied bases. The other side hadn't left much; just about everything, other than a collective handful of buildings, was destroyed. Only ruined husks and burned out engineers marked where working bases had been, along with severely damaged ACUs.

"That was fun," Eddy said quietly.

"If this was a real planet, I think it'd be safe to say that it would be uninhabitable now," Leon answered. "What was that, a hundred nukes going off? I think the game almost crashed a couple times."

"I'm glad it wasn't a real planet. I don't think I could be so nuke happy otherwise," Shining said. "I'm glad we won, though."

"Just got an invitation to join Luna and the others," Eddy said. "I'm going to see what they have to say about it."

"Probably nothing good," Leon murmured, but answered the invitation when it came.

"Did you really have to use so many nuclear missiles to destroy our base?" Twilight asked as soon as they had arrived. "The first two waves would have been enough."

"Like you didn't try to use overkill on us."

"That was to overcome Edward's nuke redirectors!"

"What are you complaining about?" Leon asked. "You had Loyalty Guns set up, never mind superfluous shields to protect from air attack, which is their only weakness."

"Yeah... but..."

"Admit it, little sis, we got you good," Shining said with amusement.

Twilight didn't respond for a moment. Then, finally, she gave a small giggle. "I guess you did, BBBFF."

"I have to admit, it was kind of cool to get nuked by missiles spelling out LOL," Rainbow said. "I still don't like that you beat us, though."

Everyone chuckled at that. It had been a great game, and they were all looking forward to more in the future.