I looked at the mirror. My, how I had changed. Then I looked at the picture stuck in the frame of the mirror from my fillyhood. I had changed.

In the picture, I was short and skinny, with a grey coat and an orange kept mane, and on my face, green eyes, like a forest; a purple bow in my mane.

Then I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Tall and fair, with a still-grey coat, an orange-red mane. Following the tiny parts in my mane, a little line of red, on my face, green eyes, like a leaf held up to a sun; a purple insignia in my mane.

The insignia was of the New Lunar Republic, led by Princess Luna herself, in all her glory.

The insignia was only partly purple really, a purple crescent on its side so that the bow of it was at the top, a red star underneath it, and a pair of red wings, sprouting from either side of the crescent.

I took the picture from the where it was stuck in the mirror frame and flipped it over.

Starlight Stormmare

1992

That’s my name. Starlight that is. Starlight Stormmare. First name-Starlight last-Stormmare.

I am all militarily formal, because I am in the NLR’s military. Petty Officer 3rd Hoof Stormmare.

And by the way, I meant a sun not the sun back there. After all, there is more than one sun.

And I know that first-hoof.

That’s right. I'm in space. If only the SC could be with us now, poor thing would get an overload from all the excitement though.

Any who, the ship I'm stationed on is the S.S. LightningRain, the flagship of the Republic’s fleet, and the ship in which “Admiral Luna” is on. It is named such on account of its main gun, which jets out bolts of blue plasma. Currently, we were at war with the Celestial Empire, mortal enemies to the NLR. But not many were sure why. ‘Because they spilled our own blood!’ was the most popular response, which only left me wondering, but why did they spill our blood?

At the moment, the LightningRain was warping to the star Ileria, where we were to take the planet Nix, facilities intact so as to use them for further operations.

Leaving the mirror, I walked to the Voice-Lock door, which opened once I had mumbled “Horace”.

Horace. My father’s name, Horace Stormmare. He was in the Space-Core too.

He was able to get to the rank of Ensign before his station was bombarded by the Union of Galactic Democracy, the UGD. Even though he was lost in the war, the NLR prevailed. And of course I was to follow in his hoofsteps.

I trotted down the hall, headed towards the armory. That was always me.

“Starlight, headed up to the armory again?”

“Still working on that 100% hit ratio?”

“As if your gun hasn’t been shot enough!”

I think that I really spent more time in the armory than anywhere else aboard the ship. It really isn’t my fault. After all, my cutie mark is a row of 3 bullets, PERFECTLY lined up. I was the perfect killer. I still am. It’s the way I was born. And it definitely saved my life a couple times too.

I reached the armory and walked inside. I was surprised to see my gal-pal Mara at the firing range. She was almost never at the armory.

“I get all the practice and blood I need on the battle field,” she would always say. Her cutie mark was a blue sphere with shocks of red lightning swirling around it.

Her special talent was electricity, in any form. As a result, she was put in the Shock division, comprised of 200,000 ponies in powered armor and had weapons ranging from the “Luna Cannon”, a really big gun that shoots lightning, to the shock pistol which electrocuted the targets brain to stop the vital functions of a pony.

My main trait, being a perfectionist is my special talent, is being a damn sneaky pony. As an opposite result to Mara, I was put in the Recon division, comprised of roughly 3,000,000 ponies. We had light armor that couldn’t protect you from much more than a couple rifle rounds, but was extremely light for what protection it gave. My favorite weapon issued to Recon was the Leviathan, A really big caliber Sniper Rifle. I have literally seen that baby tear through light armor, go through a couple ponies, come out the other side and keep on going.

My secondary was a small rifle, titled Makk-13, which focused more on ammo capacity than anything else. However, if it is used correctly it can disable fairly large opponents.

“Nice shot,” I said in between Mara loading.

She whirled around, dropping her Luna Cannon on the floor. “Sweet Luna, you have got to stop sneaking up on ponies!”

“It’s not often I see you here in the armory, how come?”

“I thought I might as well practice aiming, after all, I missed an awful lot the last engagement.”

“Hay, how's that shoulder?”

“Oh! Actually it’s pretty good! Doc really knows how to stitch flesh together.”

I circled to face her back and inspected her misty-yellow-coated shoulder. “I’ll say, you can barely tell you got hit.” To get a better look at the faint scar, I brushed her green mane out of the way.

She turned to face me, “Aww shoot! You really can’t see it? I was half-hoping for a good battle-scar.”

“Nah, not really. It isn’t big enough to look like a real wound… more like a scratch really,” I observed, looking into her amethyst eyes.

She levitated her LCannon off the floor, her horn sparkling white. I picked up her dropped magazine in my mouth, for I was no unicorn. I was a pony of the earth, stronger and stouter than any wimpy unicorn, too weak to lift their gun!

I bade her farewell and went to the armory counter where I came to the Armory Officer, Artemis. “Arty” as we sometimes call him, is a guy. If you ever make fun of his name, he’ll make you respect it.

The way he usually does this is by giving the target bully a good buck in the face. Not real, permanent damage, but enough to make them fear his name.

“Hey Arty” I said, engaging conversation.

“Oh, hey Star. Didn’t quite see you there,” he replied.

“It’s OK, I get that a lot. Can you hand me some targets?”

“Sure…. Hey, if ya don’t mind me asking, aren’t you just about a bulls-eye?”

I sighed, tired of hearing this kind of thing over and over. “Just hand me the da-“

“All hands, to their deck stations immediately. Repeat, ‘All hands, to their deck stations immediately,’ we are in orbit of Nix, prepare to board landing craft.”

“Already?” I heard Arty say. At least I think he said it; I was already galloping toward the gun lockers.

Author's Note

As for being able to churn out two chapters in one night, they are short. Plus, all I got to do is just revise a couple of things here and there. And now we will have war. O, Such fun.
Stay Friendly.
EDIT: Minor corrections because I suck at everything. :)