Chapter 5: Nanno's War

As the game continued, Czarina Kelly broke into Austro-Hungarian territory, pushing Kaiser Screech back and decimating his eastern armies. Despite this, a conflicted Jessie resolved not to participate in this bloody war, feeling like staying out of it was the truly rational and humane decision. Slater kept at it in the north, and soon he had pushed through into Kelly's lands, forcing her to pull back from Hungary and try to fend off Slater's slow but steady advance through the Russian half of Poland. Only miniscule advances were made by either Nanno or Slater along the western front, which remained largely frozen in place.

Then Kevin took Moose aside to present him with a diplomatic offer made by an ambassador from Egypt.

"The offer, Moose, is this. This ambassador from Egypt promises that his nation will rebel against Britain and, in exchange for your aid, will join the Spanish Empire." Kevin relayed the offer in his robotic monotone.

"Wow, they want to join me! I'm honored and stuff." The offer was almost too good to be true. Which, naturally, meant Moose just had to take it! He ignored the fact that, as Kevin had informed him at the start of the game, the Spanish Empire scarcely existed anymore, aside from a few tiny holdings.

"Not so fast." Said Kevin. "There's a catch to this offer. The ambassador has said that before Egypt enters into the Spanish Empire, Spain would first have to prove itself worthy by conquering Portugal. It should be easy, the ambassador said. Portugal is a tiny country surrounded by Spain on one side, and the sea on the other. It rightfully belongs to Spain anyway, is what the ambassador claims. And if Spain took Portugal and was joined by Egypt, along with its all-important Suez Canal, then Spain would finally be strong enough to fight alongside France in the war." Kevin finished relaying the offer.

"You mean; I can defend Nanno?" Moose realized, instantly sold on the idea. In his mind, he compared the offer to football. When someone throws you a pass, you don't decline to catch the ball, do you? This was as solid an analogy as Moose was capable of making.

Moose didn't think to investigate this offer or negotiate at all, let alone weigh the possible consequences of accepting. All that mattered is that he could finally be a man, and come to Nanno's aid. He accepted the offer, strolled back into the living room, and shocked nearly everyone by suddenly declaring war on Portugal.

"Moose, are you sure you want to do that?" Nanno asked, giving him an inscrutable look.

"Of course baby! And it's all for you" he assured her, and earned another smile from Nanno, though there was something maybe a little different about this smile.

"Hold the phone!" Zack shouted, "outraged". "You all can tear each other apart if you want to, but don't you know that Portugal and Britain are old allies? We always have each other's backs!"

Zack took a deep breath, affecting a solemn look. "I declare war on Spain, and I'm sending my armies to land in Portugal, to support them against the Spanish incursion."

On the inside, Zack laughed maniacally. Moose really was too stupid.

So now there were two wars raging, and it was a fun time in Europe all around. Although the war on the Iberian Peninsula was originally as much of a stalemate as most other fronts, Zack began sending in troops from British dominions and colonies all over the world; Canada, Australia, the Raj, and more. But not Egypt; he didn't want to give away his scheme. Soon the tide turned, and Zack pushed Moose out of Portugal. Not long after that, he was pushing into Spain itself, though it was slow going on account of Spain's difficult terrain and the nature of Great War era warfare.

On the other hand, Moose had pressed his own advantages for what they were worth, attempting to take Gibraltar. Luckily for Zack, Gibraltar was heavily fortified, so although it was of course surrounded by Spain itself, Moose didn't manage to capture it before Zack was able to reinforce it. Just another sign Spain was unprepared for a serious war.

Meanwhile Lisa had arranged a good deal with Nanno in private. Having not gotten a better offer from Screech and Slater, and getting bored of watching things without doing much, Lisa entered the war on the side of the Entente, opening up a new front against Austria-Hungary. Screech was struggling to manage his worn out empire, but the Italian army wasn't very impressive itself, and he was able to bottleneck Lisa's failed advance into Austria-Hungary between the Gulf of Venice and the Alps. Meanwhile, although Screech was finishing off conquering Serbia, the war in the Balkans was spiraling out of control, as Kevin began having additional Balkan nations enter the fray on both sides. Jessie the pacifist watched nervously as the war approached her borders.

For the first time in the game, Nanno went back to speak with Kevin. When they emerged a few minutes later, Nanno sat happily in her seat, smiling serenely. Kevin though was worrying Screech. Kevin stared out in the distance, looking like he had suffered a blue screen of death.

"It's all true. Beings with such short lives aren't equipped to care for the long-term health of their planet." Kevin mused quietly.

"What was that buddy?" Screech asked. "Are you alright?"

Kevin stared for a moment, and then seemed to recover. "Quite alright, it's just a little taxing for me to calculate everything that goes into this scenario. But it's no trouble, let's continue."

Slater was advancing steadily into Russia despite Kelly's best efforts, until he suddenly made a breakthrough on the western front, pushing further into France. Hoping to capture Paris, which was much closer than the Russian capital of Petrograd, Slater began sending his new batches of troops to the western front rather than the eastern front. As a result, his advance in the east began to slow, but he was gaining in the west.

Zack kicked back, smug as a bug in a rug. It was taking a while, but he was confident it was only a matter of time before his troops reached Madrid. He had mustered a sizable army, and of course the Portuguese stood with him, whereas the Spanish army couldn't seem to get it together even with the home field advantage. Moose was sweating buckets as his men died in droves because of his foolishness. Then Kevin made an announcement.

"This just in, a revolution has broken out in Ireland. The Irish Republicans have launched a major movement to free themselves from British rule."

Zack groaned and rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Great, that's just what I should have expected from those rowdy, red-headed hooligans."

Screech blinked in surprise. The revolution in Ireland should not have been as large as what Kevin had gone on to describe. And Britain hadn't even entered the Great War this time, so it was surprising that things had gone that way. What had happened, he wondered?

Nanno threw a discreet wink at Moose, who smiled, touched. Dense though he may be, he actually realized what she was hinting at with that wink.

Now Zack had to divert troops that were earmarked for Spain and send them into Ireland instead in an attempt to put down the revolution.

The war continued, and although Slater was creeping closer to Paris, he overextended what troops he had committed in Russia, and could push no further. He was worried Kelly would soon overwhelm his troops and begin pushing him back, so he was hoping to finish off France soon so he could turn his attention to Russia.

German troops were nearing the walls of Paris, having begun to advance more rapidly… and also more haphazardly. Then, whole new armies, both French armies and soldiers from French colonies, came out of nowhere, and smashed into Slater's awkward lines. Right away the tides turned, and despite the nature of trench warfare, Slater's armies were so broken that Nanno began pushing them further and further back, running them right out of France.

"You let me advance on purpose while keeping half your armies in reserve." Slater realized in shock, to which Nanno only smiled peacefully, as bloody carnage was unleashed on Slater's men. Slater gaped in horror.

Meanwhile, Slater had run out of time on the eastern front. Kelly had by now reorganized her armies, and as predicted, overwhelmed Slater and pushed him back out of Russia, and continued pushing him back through the Russian-half of Poland. Everywhere the once mighty German armies were in disarray.

Then Kevin called Nanno back to speak with him. She came back only a few moments later, and sat back in her seat. Everyone stared at her in anticipation. They could just feel something big was coming.

"Kevin was just informing me that my intelligence service captured a spy I had been looking for."

Nanno gave a very brief, but off-kilter laugh that set everyone on edge.

"King Moose of Spain, do you recognize this man?" she asked, back to normal in a split-second.

Moose stared in confusion, but Kevin filled in. "He does recognize this man; he knows him as the ambassador from Egypt."

"What?" Moose asked eloquently. "Ambassador, when did you become a spy?"

To be fair, Slater, Kelly, Screech, Lisa and Jessie were all about as confused as Moose was. Zack meanwhile sunk in his seat. He felt that he should have thought to kill that spy when he no longer needed him.

"He was always a spy, Moose." Nanno explained. "My men had a little fun with him…" Nanno smiled, and a shudder passed through the group. "and we learned that he works for Britain. He tricked you into declaring war on Portugal, all so that Britain could declare war on you."

Everyone turned to give Zack an unimpressed look. He felt that was totally unfair, since he thought that his scheme actually was pretty impressive. Of course, no one was really impressed that he had outsmarted Moose.

"Jessie, you've stood by your principles and remained neutral during all this bloodshed, always ready to advocate for peace." Nanno gave the girl a friendly smile, which she returned. "As the only neutral party here, I would like you to host a peace conference, if you don't mind?"

"I'd be happy too, Nanno." Jessie beamed, now glad she had stayed her course.

Nanno turned to Zack and gave him a sympathetic look. "Sorry Zack, but all things considered, you aren't invited to this particular conference."

Zack grumbled but left the room to go grab one of Screech's parent's beers out of the fridge.

When Zack returned to the room, he found that the war was over, for the most part. Unfortunately, things hadn't gone well for him. For starters, Portugal had learned of Zack's deception, and made peace with Spain while declaring war against the British Empire. Furthermore, they were supported by France, so things were about to get rough for him in Iberia.

Secondly, seeing the war turning against him, Slater had agreed to make peace with the Entente. He would pay reparations to Russia, France, and Italy, but in exchange for peace, they were planning to give him some of Zack's own colonies in Africa once Zack was defeated. This freed up Nanno to focus on defeating Zack, and guaranteed German support against the British colonies.

When Screech asked what he was getting, Slater had told him to shut up. He had started this stupid war and then had left Slater do all the heavy lifting, so he wasn't getting jack, and he was pulling out of Serbia, or else. Screech was in no position to argue. Lisa was also disappointed though; the war was over, and she wasn't getting hardly anything at all, just some of the reparation payments from Slater and Screech. Lisa rolled her eyes, feeling like she had wasted the evening on this stupid game.

The war in Iberia did continue, but not for long.

"Alright, alright, you guys win, sheesh." Zack gave up after a few minutes, pouting. No longer caring, he agreed to whatever terms were presented to him, freeing Ireland and giving up several of his colonies, mostly ones in Africa.

Moose and Nanno started acting all lovey-dovey, so Zack sulked home. But he managed to cheer himself up a little. He had lost the battle, sure. But he would still win the war.

Monday at lunch, and the gang was sitting at their usual table. Kelly was speaking excitedly with Screech.

"Screech, that game was so much fun! I just know students would love it! And I think we all genuinely learned a lot about World War 1. At least at first, things kind of derailed there towards the end." She said, giving a rueful glance at Zack. Britain deceiving and attacking Spain during World War 1 was not exactly something that had been likely to happen historically.

"Bound to happen eventually if you have a spanner in the works." Screech shrugged. Zack was nothing if not an agent of chaos. "But even when things don't follow the same course of events as they usually would, you can still learn about history. For example, we learned about the importance of Germany's invasion of Belgium in this historical timeline by seeing what happened when that invasion didn't occur. And we learned about the state that Spain was in at the time of the war, something that I've never heard come up during history class."

"True. Hey, Screechy-" Kelly cut herself and coughed, trying to make it seem like she hadn't just used her old pet name for Screech. Hoping she wasn't blushing and ignoring a pointed look from Lisa, she continued "do you want to meet at the Max later? I have some ideas for scenarios I'd like to run past you."

"Sure, I'd lo…" Now it was Screech's turn to cut himself off as Zack cleared his throat. "Oh, sorry, I forgot, I have plans with Zack tonight."

"Oh, maybe some other time." Kelly said, a little disappointed. "Don't get yourself in too much trouble Screech." She said, giving a warning look to Zack, who gave her an innocent smile in return, fooling absolutely nobody.

Hopefully everything would go smoothly, Screech thought, but where Zack went, chaos followed.