//------------------------------// // 11. Graduation // Story: Millennia: Beginning // by Thunderblast //------------------------------// With day one of our final tests out of the way, we all went to bed early that night, ready to face tomorrow, and hopefully all of us would pass in flying colors. I was nervous to say the least, but it wasn't going to get the better of me. Over the past month and a half, I had been through heat exhaustion after running, I have climbed net-walled towers with my bare hooves, I've been in two fights with another conscript and I've been through days of straightening up my aim with pistols and rifles. Whatever was to come tomorrow, I was ready. *** The trumpets went off the next morning, waking us all up simultaneously. My eyes shot open and before my brain could process it, I was standing up. But with that came a problem. Two moments after, I very briefly blacked out and my head throbbed in a headache. I raised a hoof to my forehead and rubbed it gently. "Headrush..." I muttered to myself as my vision returned. The conscripts rushed to get in line to shower, I wasn't in a hurry and fell in behind them where I waited patiently. The line went quick and about fifteen minutes after waking up, we were all showered and dressed in our training uniforms. I looked around the room after I finished buttoning up my jacket. I saw the looks of fear, the looks of confidence, and just blank expressions. Inside, I was both nervous and confident—mostly nervous. Not long after we finished getting ready, sergeant Hardstaff burst through the door, the drill sergeant's hat still on his head. In his mouth sat a lit cigarette that let off a thin trail of smoke that slightly waved upwards. It only surprised me because in the entire time I was there, he wasn't seen with a cigarette anywhere. Either it was a new thing, or it was a drill sergeant thing that the hat gave him. I couldn't be too sure and I wasn't going to question it. "Look at all of you...what a bunch of disgraces," his light blue eyes moved across all of us, we stood at attention beside the end of our beds. If we were all given a bit every time he or the drill sergeant said that, we'd all be rich. The dark blue pegasus walked down the median between our beds, glaring at each and every one of us as he went by. I didn't budge and neither did the others. By now we were used to his glare, which even then wasn't as bad as the drill sergeant's. I expected a lecture that morning, but instead, sergeant Hardstaff just inspected us closely without saying a word. It surprised me and I'm sure it surprised the others too. "All of you, fall in!" He shouted from the door, which he walked back to after about five minutes of walking around, glaring at us. I fell into line with the other conscripts and we marched out of the barrack in a double-file line. It made me wonder what we would be doing today that would count as our passing exam. It couldn't have been exercise, and it couldn't have been a test to see how well we were with our weapons. After yesterday, it had to be something none of us would expect. We were taken back to the docks and shuttled back across the river like yesterday. While we were on the dinghys, many of the other conscripts kept their focus on the Eclipse, which was docked still and void of activity. Well, mostly void. We drove up to the same dock as the day before and unloaded one by one onto the safe, dry concrete. Us as a group got back into a double-file line behind sergeant Hardstaff, where he led us out onto the streets. We headed back in the direction of the training facility a few blocks west of where we were. It made me think we were going to be re-tested on everything from the day before. That was, until we got there, where we found out the whole place had a giant underground facility that spanned at least two blocks under the city and was twice the size of the block used for the above-ground training center. We were all given paintball guns and masks again and given a quick briefing over what we would be doing in the basement area. It turned out each half was two different areas used for training and we would be tested and re-tested on everything possible—an operation that would last the entire day. Test after test, each one getting harder by the round, I worked my way to the final one. The final test was the same as before but harder; a solo session going against five attackers with the four-shot kill rule as before. This time, the ponies going against us were better trained and had more hiding spots than we did and a far better aim than most of us. It made me nervous after the first three conscripts to go failed almost immediately. This time I wasn't last in line and my turn was next after five others went, the last two ahead of me didn't have much luck with them but managed to just barely pass the test with the lowest allowable score. Butterflies were floating in my stomach as I went into the facility, being watched by everypony else from upstairs. The ceiling above me was actually another floor, where everypony watched. I don't know how it was possible, but it was some kind of one-sided glass. They could see me, but I couldn't see them. Which was probably a good thing. I started out in a small concrete room, the steel door separating me from the stairs up to everypony else shutting and locking behind me. The lights let off a low buzz from the amount of energy being pumped into them. The one above me flickered a bit and intermittently stayed lit before briefly going out. It was creepy but it wasn't a sign of anything, just a faulty light. I walked through another doorway, gripping the paintball gun tight in a hoof while I scanned over the room with my eyes. In it in the corners were presumably empty crates while paint stains from previous exercises could be seen splattered in different spots of different colors on the rainbow. So far, everything was going good. No one was in that room. I then went out into a poorly lit small hallway that led to four other much smaller rooms, each with open or no doors at all. A creeping feeling was crawling up my spine and made me feel uneasy. This was probably where I was going to be ambushed—or maybe not. I walked quietly through the hallway, peeking into each doorway carefully and scanning over every inch before moving on. Once again, it seemed like nopony was there. When I reached the fourth room in the hallway, I peeked inside, then quickly whipped my head back as two paint balls shot past my muzzle and splatted against the wall across from the doorway. I tensed up and went back against the wall to protect myself until my attacker was ready to show himself, or until I was ready to show myself again. I kept peeking my head in and out and barely dodging the paint balls. One hit the corner as I peeked around and I got paint spots on my mask, but it wasn't counted as a hit thank Celestia. When my attacker finally ran out of paint balls and went to reload, I rushed into the room and moved through a skyline of crates prior to finally locating the bastard. He wasn't willing to give up, however. He grew a grin on his muzzle as I aimed to shoot him, and he reached behind himself and grabbed a small rounded object. My eyes widened as he pulled the pin and I took off running for the door. I ran out of the room and into the adjacent one across the hallway just as I heard the pop of the paint grenade exploding, a small wave of the red goo sloshing into the room I was in and had left the whole entire other room covered. One down, four to go. It made me think of what to expect in the heat of an actual battle—an enemy growing hopeless and eventually deciding to take himself along with the ponies charging in on him if he were lucky enough to not have them see the grenade and run out in time. Thankfully this was just an exercise. I walked out of the room I took for cover and peeked into the paint-covered room. Some of the crates had been knocked over and the whole room had a paint job. I then proceeded to the end of the hallway where a much larger room, the width of the whole course sat. I didn't know for sure how big this part of the facility was, but I could only assume it was as big as the surface one if not bigger. I didn't even realize the fact that I was tracking red hoofprints after stepping in the paint, not that I would really care until that night when I would likely shower. It was another mostly empty room but instead of crates had concrete street barriers scattered around. I tensed up again and scanned over the room once more. My ear twitched, and soon after it did, I dove behind a close barrier just as two attackers jumped up and began covering the wall and doorway where I was with red and yellow paint. For some strange reason, they didn't stop shooting and just kept unloading their paint balls. "Automatics..." I muttered under my breath and waited for their ammunition to run out. While one of them shot, the other took a paint grenade, pulled the pin, then threw it towards me. My eyes widened when it landed right in front of me and I had little time to react. The attackers ducked behind their cover and waited for the grenade to explode. I stood up and ran as fast as I could across the room just as the paint grenade exploded behind me, covering a bit of my rear in paint. I guess that would have qualified as a slight hit, but no one counted it still. The rule was for paint grenades to have killed or count as a hit, I would have to be covered halfway in it's paint, which I thankfully wasn't. After it exploded, the attackers stood back up and shot at me more. I quickly slid onto my back, into cover where I quickly sat upright but remained low and waited for the fire to stop again—and hopefully not have to deal with another paint grenade when it did. I thanked the heavens when a paint grenade wasn't thrown my way and I was given a five second window to take at least one of them out. Instead of staying where I was, I ran out in the open and shot with one hoof towards them. Somehow one of the paint balls managed to hit one of them in the mask, which was counted for a kill in all, while another struck the other pony in the chest and side—still two more hits until he was dead. I slid into more cover, now much closer to him and the other doorway that led to a final, larger room. I waited and waited, and to my surprise, the other pony didn't shoot. Instead, I heard clicks and soon a groan of anger. With a grin growing I stood up and gave the pony two more paint balls to the chest and thus gained another kill. Two more to go. And this was it. They had to be in this final room. This was also where the last two ponies to go in for their exams nearly failed. I wasn't about to fail, not now. I walked into the last room and looked around. It was the biggest room of all, and instead of more crates or barriers, it had skinny paths with squares scattered around, with a two foot drop into hot, dirty water that probably acted as acid or lava, whichever would probably hurt. I walked onto one of the paths slowly and looked around, then stopped when I looked up and saw the final two attackers standing in plain sight with grins on their faces. There weren't very many places to hide either. One of the ponies lifted up a small remote control and pressed a button. I stared at it, then looked around. Nothing seemed to happen. Then, suddenly, the floor beneath me opened up, and out came metal claws that held one of my hooves down and prevented me from going anywhere. "Shit!" I said out loud, struggling to get my hind out of the claw's grasp, but it was no use. I returned my attention to the two remaining attackers who approached slowly, guns drawn. The one with the remote pressed another button, and shortly after he did, the section of floor beneath me began slowly sinking down into the hot water. My eyes went wide again and I struggled harder to get free. I quickly gave back up and took aim for the one with the remote. With two shots, I knocked the remote out of his hoof and sent it flying across the room. It didn't break, and he went after it while the other began shooting at me with an automatic paintball gun. Paint balls flew past me, one striking me in the shoulder hard and causing me to yelp a bit. One hit. I kept pulling on my hind leg but still couldn't move. The water was gradually growing closer to me and if I completely went in, I think that would have knocked me out of the exercise. I raised my gun slowly and took a careful aim for the pony with the remote who was scrambling to get it. Two more shots. Both missed and hit beside him. I grumbled and shot two more. One hit him in the back of the head and he fell to the ground, playing dead to count for the kill. One left. I struggled more, and finally I began kicking at the metal claw with my other leg. It soon sparked and I snapped it out of where it was built and kicked it into the water. Now free, I jumped back up onto safe floor and shot at the advancing pony before getting into cover behind a small concrete barrier to reload. Then, the fire stopped. I waited a moment, then stood up and took aim for the pony. Much to my surprise, there was no one there. I looked around quickly and didn't see anypony. Then came what I dreaded. Two more hits from behind. I was almost dead. I snapped around to find the final attacker trying to reload. Since he was at point blank, he scrambled to get his weapon reloaded but ended up dropping the pack of ammo, most of it rolling away into the water where they popped and colored the water. I raised my gun and unloaded three more onto him, which pushed him back. He kept backing up, eventually his hinds slipped and he fell into the hot water, acting as if he was burning alive, but in reality he was probably enjoying the dirty hot tub. Then that was it. Nothing happened after that. I looked around. "Did...did I pass?" I looked all around me. No response. "Hello...? Anypony?" It took a minute before a door across the water opened, leading to an elevator. I walked across one of the paths leading across the water and went into the elevator where I was brought up to the others. I walked up to them nervously and looked at everypony. They all gave me strange looks and weren't cheering. This made my ears fall back. I must have taken one more hit than I thought I did. "I'm sorry..." I said quietly, my head lowering. "Sorry for what?" Sergeant Hardstaff said as he walked up to me. "You passed." I quickly looked up at him with wide-eyes. "Sir...? But why isn't anypony...nopony said so." Just then, the room burst into cheering. The others congratulated me, and I couldn't have felt better. But, my mind was off and I hadn't realized something. After a few minutes, I was handed a piece of paper of my scores by one of the facility workers. My eyes shot open when I saw my final score—a 95 percent. My score turned out to be the second best ahead of the group and couldn't have been happier to say I was going to graduate. *** By the time we came back up to the surface facility, the sun was down and there wasn't much activity in the part of town we were in. With sergeant Hardstaff leading us, we marched back to the docks and boarded the dinghys. Even when we weren't on the water speeding across the river, the night was very cold that night and some of us were shivering. Drops of water that flew up from the boat's movement pelted us once and a while and the water from what we could tell was even colder than the air itself. I hoped for the remaining few minutes of the trip that something wouldn't knock us all off into the ice cold river. We disembarked the dinghys and quickly formed a double file line. Then, much to our surprise, "Dismissed everypony. Head to your barracks, or do whatever. Tomorrow is your day off. Saturday is Graduation Day," sergeant Hardstaff turned to us. "Spend the rest of your free time while you have it, graduates." Some cheering broke out in our small group as sergeant Hardstaff trotted away, then we began walking out of formation. Others talked to each other while we walked to our barrack. Silver Edge trotted up beside me with a big smile across his muzzle, bigger than the others. "Excited?" I smiled to him. "More than. We all passed, Star! Damn...we're all going to be Lunar Marines!" Silver squeaked happily. "Heh, yeah," I said, not intending to sound as least excited as possible. Silver thankfully didn't notice and we talked for a bit more before we went into our barracks and got out of our uniforms. When I put my uniform in a small laundry basket, I noticed as I walked back towards my bed, a few small laughs were directed towards me. I looked around at everypony curiously, they immediately stopped when I did. I shrugged it off and went to my bed, before the whole room erupted in laughter. I quickly turned around and tossed a glare towards everyone. I noticed even Solar and Silver were laughing at me. I didn't even know what it was. "Okay, what in Luna's blue moon is so funny?" "Look at your hooves!" Solar snorted as he laughed, only causing him to laugh harder. I turned my attention to my hooves, which were still red from the paint. A small smile came across my muzzle and I started laughing with them. "Very funny," I then went in the back of the barrack into the bathroom to shower and hopefully get the paint off. *** Following a good night's sleep, we were awakened by the trumpets around seven in the morning and all got up minutes after. That morning was a new feeling. I wasn't completely sure what the feeling was, but all I knew was, it felt good. With a whole day to waste on whatever I wanted to do, I decided to head out of the base and go into the city to explore the rest of it. If Manehattan was going to be my station for my whole military career, I thought it would be a good idea to memorize where things were on the island. I was disappointed when I couldn't find Solar Wave or Silver Edge to go with me, so after breakfast, I caught a taxi carriage a few blocks away in North Manehattan, as the district was called. Despite the morning being fairly nice with little clouds scattered around the sky, and the sun shining over the eastern horizon, the temperature was a chilly forty degrees. Then with the ocean breeze, it felt more like thirty, either one still cold. I'm glad I wore my beanie and gloves. After I paid the taxi carriage puller, I stepped onto the street just a block away from the Equestrian Trading Tower, two blocks from Batterneigh Park. The city was still fairly busy with at least a hundred ponies walking about in suits carrying briefcases, or thick winter-like coats, and even ponies with strange, fancy hats. Manehattan was certainly a high-class city, similar to Canterlot's population, except it had at least six times the amount of ponies inhabiting it and was a far larger slab of land where the city spanned out around the rivers, where Manehattan Island sat square in the middle. Long before I did move to Canterlot, I didn't travel much. Mostly around my own home town and to nearby communities, never once did I travel long distances, mainly because my father wasn't much of a traveler. But now that I was going to be a soldier in the Lunar Marines, I could only imagine the places I would be going elsewhere in Equestria, or beyond. My day in the city mostly consisted of walking around and going in and out of stores that interested me, but I didn't buy anything. Most of the money I had was spent and I couldn't afford anything—even then, I didn't know what I could buy that I would be able to take back. I hoped that after graduation, we would be allowed to still live elsewhere. I still had an apartment in Canterlot that I couldn't just leave behind. I took a taxi carriage back to the mainland and walked the rest of the way to the naval station and was let in after showing my identification—which actually was just my dog tags. After dinner I went back to Barrack 19 and walked inside. Nothing was different and most of the conscripts were there, either chatting or doing their own thing. Since I had nothing to do, I just laid down and listened to conversations—and later on joined into one. When lights out came, we all went out like the lights in the room. We all had a big today tomorrow. *** I woke up earlier than everypony else that morning for some strange reason. I didn't question it, but I was up and I might as well get ready for the day ahead. After a quick shower, I went back to my bed. No one else was awake still, surprisingly. The one problem that kept crossing my mind was if we were supposed to have dress uniforms for the graduation ceremony or not. Usually when ponies graduated a military academy, they dressed nicely and one by one went onto a stage to be given their patches and what not. Of course, it could have been different here. Not long later, the others started to get up and take showers, while I sat patiently on my bed, under the blankets. The heater still wasn't fixed and it was extremely cold in the room. Others shivered as they waited in line to shower. Luckily the water heater had been easy fixed, it turned out the only thing wrong with it was the pilot light went out on the heater and needed to be quickly restarted. While some of the others showered, a soldier none of us had seen before walked into our barrack to let us know when the graduation ceremony was, which it wasn't until later that night. Just perfect, another day with nothing to do until tonight. Before he walked out, he stopped himself and told us that we would be wearing our training uniforms to the ceremony, and that tomorrow or Monday we would be receiving our actual uniforms and having our patches sewed on. The pony walked out, and then the chatter in the room began. Some talked about what the ceremony would be like, others talked about how good they would look in the uniforms we knew we were getting. While they did, I remained mostly silent, occasionally replying to questions that they asked and others didn't know the answers to. At least, I tried my best to answer them. Breakfast came and went like a flash, and so did lunch. Afterwards, we were advised by the same soldier from earlier to get our uniforms on and be ready to be picked up. Without hesitation, I got dressed. First the dark blue t-shirt, followed by the lighter blue jacket we all had during boot camp. It made me think too. This would be the last day I would ever wear this jacket in my military career. By tomorrow, I would have a brand new look. Just after sunset, while we spent the time either chatting or other things in the barrack, the doors opened and the room instantly went silent. We all turned to the door, and standing in it stood a somewhat taller pony, a dark grey unicorn dressed in the usual Lunar Marine camouflage. He looked over us slowly with a hardened look on his face. "Ten-hut! All of you, line up! Double file!" He shouted. We scrambled into a perfect double file line in front of the unicorn. His eyes moved over us, then he turned around. "On me. March!" He began out the door and onto the base grounds. As a group, we followed close behind the unicorn, keeping good formation without losing posture. We marched through the base, and soon to the main gate where numerous taxi carriages waited. It surprised most of us, and two were put on each carriage before the pony pulling them galloped away with the carriage and making a right turn towards the bridge. I was lucky enough to be put with Silver Edge when we got on the taxi carriage and sped away. Not me or him knew where we were going. But when I saw we were heading for the bridge to cross over into downtown, a little bit of excitement hit me. We pulled up behind the other taxi carriages in front of a tall building near the center of the city that was made of tan brick, with large squared glass paned windows that spanned up most of the building's height. Large spotlights stood from the ground up, bright yellow rays of light emanating from them stretching up into the sky. Ponies in suits and dresses stood in a moving line outside of the building going through two of the doors, while the third was open for our entry. From what it looked like, the building seemed to be a giant theater or something like that with the way the spotlights and fine architecture were. I hopped off of the carriage with Silver and we were brought into the building and taken to a side room where we were told to wait until everypony waiting to get in was seated. It was beginning to feel like we were part of some sort of play, and they were going all out with our graduation ceremony. Was it always like this? Only one way to find out. A few minutes after we arrived, a light blue stallion in a black suit and tie with a neatly combed jet black mane walked into the room we were in. "Everypony is seated. Now, when your names are called, which they will be alphabetically, you will all one at a time walk up to the stage, up the main aisle and stand in two groups on the podium where everypony can see you. Sergeant Hardstaff asks that you all stand at almost attention, and when he comes out, you know what to do. Is everypony ready?" He spoke in a slight eastern accent. We all nodded, some cheers of excitement broke out as well. The pony smiled and opened the door for us, and one by one we trotted out of the room into the main hall of the building, just outside of the ball room. Some of the others checked themselves in mirrors and made slight adjustments to their manes or uniforms, while I stood and waited patiently. At first, I was excited for the ceremony. But now that I knew it would be in front of a ton of ponies, the excitement quickly faded. Oh how much I hate stage fright. Thankfully, we weren't supposed to be doing any kind of speeches on the spot. The tall double-wooden doors into the ball room swung open slowly at the will of unicorn's silver magical aura, and instantly we saw ponies were seated at round dinner tables, being served different types of wines and fancy Manehattan dishes. It was then that the same pony that collected us was on stage. The pony cleared his throat and gently tapped a hoof on the microphone. It made a brief high pitched noise that caused many to wince. He blushed in some embarrassment and cleared his throat again. "Mares and gentlecolts, I would like to thank you all for coming to the annual Lunar Marine Corps Graduation Ball! My name is Sergei Tobbletop, and tonight, we are here to celebrate the young ponies who have given it their all in training for the last two and a half months, all training to become guardians of our fair nation. To protect us and keep our country in the long peace we have had for three centuries. Tonight, these young ponies become soldiers." The room erupted in collective, loud claps of hooves that lasted a few moments, before Sergei took a small piece of paper out of his suit pocket and unfolded it. He stared at it, and began calling names of our group alphabetically. One by one, the others walked up the main red carpet aisle to the stage, each being clapped for the duration of their walk up until the next name was called. Each conscript first standing on the top podium until it was full, standing straight and tall but not waving or looking around. Then, they began standing on the lower podium. "Conscript Star Shooter!" Sergei called with a smile. With a second of hesitation, I walked casually down the red carpet as ponies clapped. I couldn't help but smile slightly to the ponies in the audience and did so until I reached the stage. I wiped the smile away and stood on the bottom podium towards the center where the next spot was. I stood beside Solar Wave, and beside him stood Silver Edge. I was happy to be beside my two friends for the ceremony. Just a couple of minutes after the first pony walked out, the last stood on the podium. "Mares and gentlecolts, I give to you, the princess of the moon herself, Princess Luna!" The room burst into cheers and claps as the Lunar Princess walked onto the stage from the side, dressed in a magnificent silver and dark blue gown, her styled mane sparkling like the sky on a cloudless night. Between the claps, I could hear some of the ponies talking about just how beautiful her dress was. I had to agree, it was something I had never seen before. Sergei bowed to the princess, taking her hoof in his and kissing it softly. Princess Luna nodded once to him with a smile and responded with a thank you, before she stepped to the side. "And finally, Sergeant Hardstaff of the Lunar Marine Corps!" Sergei then stepped to the side on the opposite side of the stage of Princess Luna as the extreme dark blue pegasus dressed in a dark blue dress uniform with Luna's cutie mark as a patch on his shoulder and silver buttons trotted out, he shook hooves with Sergei, then bowed to Princess Luna and gave her hoof a soft kiss as well. After doing so, Hardstaff stood beside Sergei and motioned his hoof in a circle for Princess Luna to take the microphone with a bow. The princess nodded once to him with a smile, walking up to the microphone and staring over the crowd as it quieted down. She cleared her throat. "Mares and gentlecolts, it is a great honor for us to be here in the wonderful city of Manehattan on this beautiful August evening. As Sergei said, we are all here to celebrate the graduation of these fourteen fine stallions here behind me. Each stallion has proven themselves worthy enough to be a soldier, to be a part of my military branch, to be called a Lunar Marine. Before we get to the special part, we have some things to say." Princess Luna paused for a moment. "As some ponies know, the Lunar Republic back a millennia ago was created by myself, Princess Luna, when a great darkness took over my soul. When I had had enough with ponies shunning the beautiful night. I wanted ponies to love my job as much as they loved my dear sister, Princess Celestia's. The Lunar Republic was used for bad, to destroy all that my dear sister had created. Her guard, and anypony that worked for her cause." "It is a grim thought, but it brings me joy that after all of these years, just two of them ago we decided to re-establish the Lunar Republic, but as the New Lunar Republic. Not for any terror or rebellions, but to protect our great nation for what it is, to keep the harmony that my sister fought to keep one thousand years ago. And these ponies, these fourteen stallions behind me, are the next ponies to serve as a part of Equestria's military. They have spent their blood, sweat, and tears, fighting to become what they will be shortly. There will be no more rebellions, there will only be fighting for everypony's freedom. There will be no more wars, just battles for Equestria's future. And most importantly, there will be no more rivalry between the sides." "No more rivalry between the sailors and Marines of the New Lunar Republic, and no more fighting over who's best on my sister's side and mine. It may be a different name, it may be a different uniform, it may be different technology, but overall, our military is all one, no matter who's side who is loyal to." Princess Luna stopped. Immediately after, more loud clapping and cheering broke out in the room, and it remained that way for a full minute before she cleared her throat again, then turned to a soldier in a similar uniform to sergeant Hardstaff's walking out, carrying small wooden boxes. "May I have the patches please, kind sir?" The soldier nodded once, opening the box slowly, revealing many of the same military uniform patches laid atop one another but not in a pile. Each patch had Luna's crescent moon facing upwards in the rounded center, with two large white bars sticking slightly upwards out of the side of the circle, connected by white that edged the entire patch. Princess Luna began going by ponies at the bottom of the podium, the one I was on. Each conscript walked up to her and sergeant Hardstaff, saluting to the both of them. Sergeant Hardstaff saluted back proudly, and after exchanging salutes, Princess Luna lit her horn in a blue aura and pressing the patch on their shoulders on a velcro spot she magically added to their uniforms, then bowed her head to them, the conscripts—now privates—bowing in thanks. I was third to walk up to the princess. My heart was beating fast but I didn't show any signs of being nervous in front of her or the sergeant. I saluted Hardstaff and the princess, receiving one back from the sergeant before Princess Luna pinned the velcro patch onto my shoulder. I bowed to her, then walked back to my spot on the podium. Next was Solar Wave, and then Silver Edge, and finally the rest of the group. When the Lunar Princess finished, she walked back up to the microphone as the soldier with the wooden box stood beside Sergei and Hardstaff. "Mares and gentlecolts, I am proud to give to you, the new privates of the Lunar Marines." The crowd erupted in cheering and clapping once more, much louder than the other times, most standing from their seats. We stood perfectly still with mostly blank expressions, but deep down, I was ready to burst with excitement. Following the ceremony, we were taken offstage and to a fancy buffet in the room where we were left to eat. Some of the conscripts—I mean privates—went to family members they had in the crowd. It was a heartwarming sight, but then it made me think of home. It made me think of my parents who would probably never know where I was now. But I was certain they would be proud. I was a Lunar Marine now.