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."