saving private montage

Chapters

NO PLACE TO HIDE
Shoot Down the Sun
You Only Live (ACTUAL NUMBER OF LIVES TO BE DETERMINED)
Lowered Expectations

NO PLACE TO HIDE

Private Juniper Montage dodged a large projectile as she ran through the rooms of her house, shielding her head with her hands. The projectile impacted behind her with a thud, and a muffled explosion.

Her entire world was periodic explosions, and had been so for almost fifteen whole minutes now.

"Meet new people," she'd been told. "Expand your horizons," she been urged. Why in the name of all that was heavenly had she had signed up for tonight, again? She was a cinephile, an intellectual, a creative mind! Nowhere in that sentence did the word 'combatant' remotely have a home!

She looked around desperately for a place to hide, but none availed her. There were no forests, there was no high rubble, there was nothing—just level carpet and hardwood as far as the eye could see. All that flooring became covered in more and more debris with each volley, leaving zero opportunities for camouflage. There was just too much visible ground, and she was stuck alone in it.

It was all she could do not to sneeze and give away her position.

Meanwhile, Juniper could hear the whirring of artillery, several rooms behind her. She had some distance between her and it, but she knew it wasn't much, especially with that whirring getting louder by the second.

She heard a thoomp, and looked behind her, fearing the worst. Sure enough, another large projectile was flying her way. Its arc was true—Juniper could tell her luck had run out. It was going to hit her, and there'd be nothing left. She ran for her life, sure that it wouldn't last much longer—

"Montage!"

She heard a voice ahead of her. A familiar, welcome voice. She looked around her, until she saw Captain Starlight Glimmer's head and arm, poking outside the ajar wooden door of a side closet.

"Get your hot ass in here," Starlight said, hissing and beckoning.

Juniper poured on the speed, slipping through the open door of the closet just in time. Starlight closed the door, just before the world around them exploded in a sea of white, visible through the closet's slats.

Juniper closed the slats as much as she could, while still leaving herself and Starlight as visible as possible. Through the low light, she could just barely make out her best friend, as well as the fact that the both of them were now nearly buried in a sea of clothes. Still, better soft clothes than what was waiting for them outside.

"Oh my gosh, I could kiss you right now," Juniper said, throwing her arms around Starlight. "I thought I was a goner out there."

Starlight hugged Juniper back, and Juniper resisted the urge to sink into her. "We'll revisit that first statement when we're sure the second one doesn't apply," Starlight said. "But right now, we need to think of a plan."

"A plan?" Juniper said, taking a step back. "Have you seen what that thing can do? Face it, ma'am: Sunset's troops are just too much for us!" She shivered amidst her hanging winter clothes, and the multiple pairs of boots around her ankles. "I'm telling you, we're gonna get ghosted tonight—"

Juniper felt the tiniest, yet most profound of stings across her face. With widened eyes and a dramatic gasp, she looked towards Starlight, who was holding a fuzzy winter glove in one hand and staring at Juniper with determined eyes.

"You... you hit me!" Juniper said, placing her palm to her right cheek. "Not even my own mother—"

"And I'll keep hitting you until you pull yourself together, soldier!" Starlight said with all the conviction of someone who had once tried to rewrite all of time and most of space. "I'll have no wimps, deserters, or pessimists in my unit! There's no place for softness in the Monstar Army!"

Starlight let her words linger in the silence, before relaxing and asking, "That didn't hurt, did it?" She raised her hand to Juniper's cheek.

"N-No, I'm okay," Juniper said, shaking her head.

"Are you sure?" Starlight said, her voice tinged with a concerned and insecure lilt. "I-I tried to use the softest thing I could find—"

"No, no, I'm totally all right," Juniper said, her heart warming and a smile threatening to creep across her face. "But you're seriously sweet for asking, I really appreciate it."

"Of course, I'd ask," Starlight said. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I thought I'd hurt you."

Juniper stopped fighting the smile, and instead once more fought the urge to kiss her superior officer. "Though, technically," she added, "there are a lot of movies where what you just did would seriously have meant you just challenged me to a duel."

Starlight blinked. "What, like, a 'duel to the death' kind of duel?"

Juniper shrugged. "Hey, I didn't create these genres, I just use 'em."

"Fair enough." Starlight's face stiffened, signaling the return of Captain Glimmer. "Anyway, back to our never-ending war against the Sunlights. I need a sitrep, Private, and I need it STAT!"

Private Montage saluted, clapping her ankles together. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am! It's their chief inventor, ma'am!" she said, gasping for breath. "Twilight Sparkle's really outdone herself this time, with that new launcher of hers."

"Well, she is super-smart and all," Captain Glimmer said, putting her fingers to her chin. "I expected this situation. The question is, how do we get ourselves out of it?"

"You're telling me you don't already have a battle strategy?" Juniper said. "What happened to intel? What happened to high command?"

"This is all we've got! What, you think we have the answers to everything right off the bat?" Captain Glimmer said. "In case you've forgotten, this was supposed to be a simple base capture op, but look what's happened since we started!"

As if on cue, another loud, poofy explosion sounded outside their door. Starlight huffed and rolled her eyes. "There's only one thing you can trust about any given plan, and it's the fact that they're guaranteed to go off the rails," she said. "'Plans' may work out in the movies—but this is no movie, this is war, real war, big war, so suck it up, and adapt—"

Juniper gasped, snapping her fingers. "That's it!"

Starlight tilted her head. "What's it?"

Juniper's grin was toothy, and her eyes glinted in the darkness. "I can't believe you've forgotten who you're talking to already—"

Starlight stared at her with furrowed eyebrows.

"Uh, ma'am." Juniper cleared her throat. "But. In my world? Everything's like the movies."

Juniper assaulted the walls with her palms, feeling out for things she hoped against hope were there. In less than a minute, that hope paid off as one hand tapped against a hollow surface, and another wrapped around a slim cylinder.

"Bingo, baby," Juniper said with a conspiratorial chuckle. "Starlight, ma'am, I know how we can win this. But it's totally going to get messy. Are you prepared to get messy?"

"You know me," Starlight said with a chuckle. "I technically get messy whenever I try to make dinner. So, I tend to leave it to Spike."

"Wait, Twi's dog?"

"No, no, other Twi's kid dragon."

"Right, I keep forgetting. Aaaaaand that explains why my house is full of pizza right now," Juniper said. "Anyway, follow my lead. Private Montage is going to lead us to victory tonight."

Shoot Down the Sun

Things were going well for General Sunset Shimmer.

Far better than she could have dreamed, in fact. The Monstar Army had been scattered throughout the battlefield and were still showing no signs of regrouping. Meanwhile, the kitchen base was still hers, along with all the scrumptious pizza still housed within. The night had barely begun, yet the Sunlight Army would be victorious in a matter of minutes.

Then again, victory had been assured the second she and Twilight chosen their squad name. No matter how one sliced it, their faction's portmanteau was the best, and Starlight's was awful in the best of circumstances. Still, having the most fortified room in the house, and a crack scientist on your side, hardly hurt matters.

Speak of the demoness—there was that crack scientist now.

Science Officer Twilight Sparkle entered the kitchen, walking in front of, and dramatically saluting, Sunset. "My apologies, General Shimmer. I lost sight of the enemy," she said, slumping with a sigh. "They'll turn up, though. I just know it."

"No apologies necessary," Sunset said, tracing her finger along Twilight's cheek, then kissing it. "You sent them on the run and put the fear of Celestia in them. Probably both Celestias. Either way, because of your exemplary efforts, victory in the Pizza Wars will be ours for the taking." She paused, then chuckled and added, "Sheesh, I'm starting to sound like Rainbow Dash over here. Someone stop me before I start sending emergency group texts for punctured soccer balls."

Twilight giggled. "I'll never let that happen, ma'am." She stepped up to Sunset with a blush. "Besides, it was nothing." She hugged her still-loaded makeshift pillow cannon close to her. "All it took was a sturdy pole and some elastic tubing."

"And that was your first mistake," Sunset heard a voice say behind them, accompanied by the sounds of hissing air, and plastic clacking against plastic. "Going so low-tech, that is."

Sunset whirled around. The window was open, and Juniper and Starlight were standing outside the house, with pump-action water guns trained on her and Twilight.

"Wha..." Sunset could barely sort through all the questions that invaded her mind at once, much less get them out in the open. "How did you get out there? How did you get the window open? How are neither of you covered in feathers?"

"Well, I'll put it this way," Juniper said. "Your second mistake was forgetting that you all decided to hold this war in my house."

"This place's got crawl spaces leading from one end of the house, to the other, to even outside, all over the place—including inside closets," Starlight chimed in. "Private Montage, ready weapons!"

"Ready, ma'am!" Juniper said, as both girls trained their water cannons on the Sunlight Army's two premier combatants.

Twilight aimed back, but the window wasn't open high enough for the projectile to mean anything. At best, a pillow would bounce harmlessly off. At worst, there'd be property damage and broken glass.

Sunset, meanwhile, knew that she'd been caught, flat-footed and unarmed, and cursed her lack of foresight. She briefly considered trying to shield herself with the pizza, but to Tartarus with that—the top box contained her Special Pie, topped with shredded wheat. She did her best to hold back her drool as she spoke.

"H-h-hold on a second!" she said, trying to buy some time. "The rules didn't say anything about Hyper Splasher water cannons! This was supposed to be a pillow fight!"

"Yep, yep, yep. Spoken like a girl trapped thinking inside the box," Private Montage said.

"Indeed," Captain Starlight said. "Hate to say it, but all's fair in love and pizza. Fire!"

With simultaneous trigger-pulls, Starlight and Juniper's cannons doused Sunset's face and top with pressurized water. Sunset recoiled under the blast with a prolonged moan, before falling to the floor, in slow motion.

Before anyone could say another word, General Sunset Shimmer lay splayed in the center of the kitchen—the night's first casualty of a conflict which had claimed many a high school girl in sleepovers past...

...and would surely continue to do so for several sleepovers to come.

You Only Live (ACTUAL NUMBER OF LIVES TO BE DETERMINED)

"Nooooooooooooo!"

A maudlin scream escaped Science Officer Twilight Sparkle's throat, as she witnessed General Shimmer sink to the linoleum tile. She fell to her knees beside her fallen superior officer—nay, her friend above all friends.

"General Shimmer, General Shimmer! Sunset!" she cried out to the ceiling.

Between sobs, Twilight pondered just how this could have happened. She could remember, like it was yesterday, meeting a plucky sergeant who instantly had taken a liking to her—and vice versa. Sunset had always worked hard and overachieved, and Twilight had always been there to support Sunset during moments of vulnerability. Together, they were unstoppable, and Sunset had risen through the ranks, faster than any officer before her.

But of course, there was no expecting the Monstar Army to care about that. To care about practicality or science. All they ever cared about were their precious movie fantasies and... and magic! No wonder the two had always been at war.

But even so, how could they be this heartless? Did they have no decency? No respect for human life? No love for staying dry, or for beautiful creatures such as—

Twilight closed a fist and stood up, righteous indignation swelling within her. Flames burned within her irises.

Fine then! If the Monstar Army wanted an angry R&D officer, then an angry R&D officer was what they were going to get!

She whirled to face Juniper and Starlight, who were already rounding the back of the house to re-enter through the back door. "You monsters!" she exclaimed, tracking them with her pillow cannon. "So help me, the second you get into my firing line, I'll pump you so full of feathers that you'll be able to pass for Scootaloo's aunts!"

"Well, uh, that doesn't exactly give us that much incentive to come inside, does it?" Starlight said with a laugh from outside the back door.

"Also, way to also give away your plan?" Juniper added. "I guess we'll just hide out here, behind these nice safe walls and door."

Twilight grunted. She was used to loudly proclaiming her scientific plans to the world—all this tactical espionage action was beyond her. "Darn it! I, uh—" She was stopped upon hearing a cough from below her. She gasped, and looked back down at Sunset, who moved just a little. "Oh my gosh! You're not gone yet!"

"No, but I'm getting there," Sunset said with another cough. "Don't think I have long. Maybe we should have invited Fluttershy after all. The Sunlight Army could use a medic right about now."

"Don't speak," Twilight said, cradling Sunset in her arms. "Save your strength. We'll get you back to high command, and you'll make it through this, I swear on all of the inventions I've ever made and are yet to come, you are not going to die on me tonight don't you die on me!"

Weakly, Sunset turned her head to face Twilight, holding her hand over the water spot on her shirt.

"Don't... don't make promises you can't keep, Officer," Sunset said amidst wheezes. "But, yeah, before I totally die out here in this totally swank kitchen, I want you to know two things."

"Anything," Twilight said, clasping Sunset's hands in hers. "Anything at all. What is it?"

"Well, the first is that you're the best science officer I've ever had serve under me. And..." Sunset blushed. "Maybe you were more than a science officer to me, too."

"The feeling is mutual," Twilight said, sniffling, and kissing Sunset on the forehead. "Totally mutual. What's the other thing?"

"Oh, the other thing is that I..." Sunset coughed. "Ordered..." Sunset coughed again. "This was going to be a surprise, but..."

"Less context, more point," Twilight urged.

"I... I ordered a mushroom and green peppers pie just for you," Sunset said. "It's in the bottom box."

Twilight gasped, feeling a huge swell of affection and joy for Sunset at that very moment. "You... you knew," she sniffled. "You heard me complaining at the last CHS pizza party..."

"I saw you picking all the toppings off pretty much everything, yeah," Sunset said. "When it comes to you, I... I pay..."

Sunset closed her eyes. Her arms went limp. Twilight let the hand she was holding drop, never to move again.

"Sun-seeeeeeeeeeeet!" Twilight cried, through the ceiling, up to whatever stars were above.

"Ohmigosh! Okay, that was awesome," she then heard a squealing voice saying, close by. She looked up to see Juniper pointing her camera at her. Starlight stood next to her, rolling her eyes.

"That was, like, the best death scene in the history of all of death! Scenes. Probably just death scenes," Juniper continued. "Either way, this is the prime stuff movies are made of!" She pointed the camera closer. "And speaking of prime, so's your profile. All this pizza war business aside, ever consider being on the silver screen?"

Twilight got up slowly, blushing towards Juniper and taking a step back. "You really think I could do it?"

"Well, of course! I mean, once we get all the rights taken care of and such. Technically two Twilight Sparkles exist, so we've got to draw up a contract to make sure all proceeds to go to the right one. And your director. Which would be me. But yeah, we could totally do it. If you're up for it."

A slanted smile crossed Twilight's lips, and she fingered her trigger. "I'll keep all of that in mind. You know, after this whole 'revenge' thing."

It took exactly one second for Juniper to gape, showing Twilight that she'd just realized she'd been had. It took one more second for Starlight to gasp herself and raise her Hyper Splasher.

Two seconds was far too late.

Twilight skipped to the side, firing a pillow—once more, in slow motion—in midair, across the length of the kitchen.

It hit Juniper square in the shoulder.

Lowered Expectations

Starlight Glimmer groaned, making sure she was loud enough for everyone to hear her epic frustration.

They'd had them. They'd seriously, totally had the Sunlight Army on the run and they would have had first pick of the pizza and Starlight would have eaten all of the Special Pie.

And then, suddenly, this. Of all the hare-brained ways to lose an advantage. Not to mention:

"So, the title of this thing just went out the window," she said to Juniper, while keeping her eyes trained on Twilight.

Juniper didn't seem to care. "Oh my gosh, this is the fluffiest pain I've ever experienced," she said, while slumped against the wall and clutching her shoulder. "Avenge me, Captain Starlight!" She grinned at Starlight with lidded eyes. "Avenge me hard."

"I don't even know if I want to anymore." Starlight rolled her eyes and huffed, keeping her Hyper Splasher trained on Twilight. "Seriously. I told you to hang back until we had the perfect shot, but nooooooo. Someone had go to get her 'perfect shot'!"

"Come on," Juniper said, her voice strained. "You expected me to leave all that perfect melancholy on the table? This is my passion! I collect scenes! I pilfer performances! You mean to tell me that if you didn't come across a cool new magic spell that was right up your alley, you wouldn't go for it? Like if you got to travel through time, or something—"

"Junie, please don't give me a reason to turn this gun on you," Starlight said, pumping water into the chamber. She sighed. "Still, deep down I knew it was going to come down to this." She looked into Twilight's eyes. "To the two of us. It always does in some way or another, doesn't it?"

Twilight glared back with dramatically defiant eyes of her own. "And it'll end the same way it always does. Especially given what you've done! Do you have any idea what General Shimmer meant to me?"

"Okay, time out," Juniper said. "If you two meant that much to each other, then why are a general and a scientist seeing live combat? Like, even I know that's a little out there."

"I..." was all Twilight could say in response.

Sunset opened her eyes. "Come on, we worked with what we had. Do you see any other members of our army in this house?"

"That seems to be the Sunlight Army's problem, not ours," Juniper said, high-fiving Starlight with her non-pillowed arm. "You didn't have to pick those ranks."

"I-I picked the ones that fit our character!" Sunset said, adding in a small voice, "And, uh, which sounded the coolest. Cut me some slack—I'm from a magical horse world that doesn't have war!"

"What, like we're some kind of bloodthirsty savages?" Juniper said, gesturing around. "Our world has more movies about war than it's had actual wars!"

"Our world doesn't have movies!" Sunset countered.

"Yeah?" Juniper grinned again, placing her hands on her hips. "Well, whose fault is that? Jump it up, pony slackers!" She looked to her squad mate. "No offense, Starlight."

Starlight shrugged. "Eh, none taken. Honestly, that was my catchphrase for years. "

Twilight cocked her head. "Wait, Sunset, you seriously don't have war in your world? I thought you were kidding when you first told me that."

"Nope. Well, not for the most part? It's... kind of a fuzzy deal." Sunset sat up, and the others sat down on the floor to meet her. "Equestria is a world where our ancestors were beset by terrible magical creatures who fed off hatred, and doled out cold weather in return."

"Everypony remembers that legend, yeah," Starlight said. "Though to be fair, they never got to the 'large-scale conflict' state? Like, not much in the way of weapons or huge clashing armies. Just a lot of mean stares and petty arguments back and forth. None of the pony races cared what happened to the other, so long as they did their jobs and got their stuff. Which still made for a lot of negativity in the air, meaning a lot of winter all around." Starlight grinned. "I guess you could have called it a cold war."

Sunset groaned, loud and long, burying her head in her hands.

"Come on," Starlight laughed, elbowing her. "You know you love it."

"I know I'm going to need therapy after that one," Sunset said. "Anyway, it did actually get really bad when they tried to find a new land to escape all the blizzards. The arguing just got worse, to the point where everypony almost got completely frozen. If some of the ponies involved hadn't learned to cast aside as many differences as they could, and look for ways to not hate one another, but care about each other instead..."

"At least two of us in this room might not exist," Starlight said, her voice somber.

"And my and Twilight's life would be way worse," Juniper said. She wrapped her arm around Starlight, pulling herself close. Twilight did the same with Sunset.

Sunset nodded. "Exactly. Every single one of us in this room right now is here because someone took a chance on understanding us. On having a conversation with us. On forgiving us. Just like Equestria's forebears took a chance on forgiving and having conversations with each other.

"And as Starlight said, that story's been passed down and taught to fillies and foals ever since. So not a lot of us are in touch with our inner aggressive selves. Like, the last 'war' I've ever heard of happening in Equestria was fought with, uh, pies."

Starlight blinked. "Pies?"

Sunset blushed. "Pinkie was involved."

Twilight blinked. "Wait, Pinkie Pies? So, the whole war was fought with Pinkie Pie clones?"

Sunset shook her head. "No, no, real pies. Pinkie herself just started the war. Though now that you bring it up, Twilight told me that Pinkie clones really did happen at one point."

"Wait," Starlight said. "So, a war was fought with pies by Pinkie Pie clones doing all the fighting by proxy between both factions?"

Juniper scratched her head. "This is starting to sound like a certain other movie."

On a hunch, Starlight looked over to Sunset, and saw her looking completely gobsmacked. "I, uh, think we should shift to a new topic track," she said, taking hold of one of Sunset's hands.

Sunset exhaled. "Thank you."

"Okay so," Juniper said, "no war, no warriors... so, what, you're all peace-loving zen-masters over there or something? World of Woosah?"

"Not quite," Sunset said. "By my memory and what Twilight's told me, the Wonderbolts are still a thing. They're stunt flyers, but they're a pretty rigid and disciplined outfit. And then there's the Royal Guard, which includes Twilight's brother, but... well, they're guard ponies. They mainly handle skittish crowds around the Princesses, and random events of interest around the country.

"They get the closest to military training that Equestria has, but..." Sunset's face scrunched. "They're also recruited in proportion to how much danger normally exists in Equestria. Meaning, if you put every guard pony from every kingdom that we had onto a single battlefield... let's just say it wouldn't look very imposing."

"Hey, look on the bright side," Starlight said, "whoever we were fighting would probably be too busy laughing to beat us anyway."

All four giggled.

"She's not wrong, though," Starlight continued leaning back on her palms. "Equestria's pretty chill, down to its rulers. Peacekeeping's the name of the game—nopony wants to take a chance on history, or even myth, repeating itself. It's not as if ponies have any fewer conflicts or disagreements between each other than any other sapient species. But rarely do those conflicts get to escalate past a certain point, because we're all taught to resolve those conflicts instead of letting them fester, and then blow up.

"So, if it looks like we don't know what we're doing when it comes to fighting organized battles, it's because we kind of don't." She rolled her eyes. "So, yeah, every once in a while, we get a Storm King. It happens."

"You still need to tell me about that one," Sunset said.

"No, I don't," Starlight scoffed. "Though Tempest was kind of hot. Anyway, we're set up to handle mythical beasties and the occasional supervillain who doesn't get the drop on us, because that's all we're used to getting. You could send an army of, I dunno, a few hundred mind-washed teenagers, through the portal and probably still stand half a chance of taking over." Starlight winked at Sunset.

"Or a few dozen cult-indoctrinated ponies?" Sunset said, with a sly grin back towards Starlight.

"Hey, we'd totally have grabbed a few territories before we got stopped!" Starlight said, laughing.

"What about a dimension-breaker?" Twilight said, blushing.

"Oh, you would have taken both our worlds down super-easily," Sunset said. "And I knew it, too. Why else do you think I asked you to become my girlfriend with two student bodies watching?"

"H-hey!" Twilight said, her cheeks tinting deep red.

All four were laughing now. Juniper raised her hand. "Oooh, ooh! What about a super-tall movie diva? Huh? What could I do?"

"You could team up with me," Starlight said. "I could totally use you in the cities, especially."

"Score!" Juniper said, embracing Starlight for the third time that night and squeezing as hard as she could.

"But as all four of us can attest," Starlight said, "any danger that pops up doesn't last long. Equestria's pretty good at making friends, even with folks that didn't start out very fond of us. We just allied ourselves with the dragons and changelings."

Sunset gasped, looking at Starlight with wide eyes. "No way. I'd heard of the trips you made to their lands, but it's actually gotten that far? That's incredible."

"It really is! That one, I'll gladly tell you all about later tonight." Starlight looked at Juniper and Twilight. "But yeah. That's how we avoid most conflicts. The rest, we talk ourselves out of. It probably sounds like a weird system, but friendship really has just... worked for us up until now. Fortunately."

"And for the few times someone pops up that we didn't plan on," Sunset said, "we have Princess Twilight. Good thing she is a princess—we're going to need the millennium-plus of protection."

"Heh. Well, we'll do our best to make her job easier," Juniper said. "Right?"

All four girls helped each other off of the floor, and leaned into a group hug. "I can get behind that," Sunset said.

The other three nodded.

"Cool," Juniper said as they parted. Anyway, this 'war' stuff was fun, but I think the novelty's worn off. Anyone else hungry?"

With a cheer, the four of them opened the pizza boxes, with the top one revealing a pizza slathered in shredded wheat. Sunset and Starlight looked at each other, their mouths shut tight to avoid drooling. They cut the pie down the middle, setting an equal number of slices for themselves, and leaving the other pie boxes for the other two girls.

"I'll admit," Juniper said between bites, "I wasn't really sold on this 'sleepover' thing at first when you all suggested it? But I think this is the most fun I've ever had."

"Glad we could help," Starlight said. "Looks like friendship won tonight, too."

As they feasted on pizza, they looked around themselves, and out to the other rooms of the house, which were utterly covered in feathers.

"Yeah, uh, about that," Juniper said. "You think friendship will help solve the mystery of how to clean this place up before my parents get home?"