Journal Entry - The Shadow Sentinels
Date: Sun Year 2000
Tempest slowly unties the three ponies and, as he finishes, the pink pony starts to shake even more. She then explodes into confetti as she appears behind Tempest and starts rambling on about how strange the humans look.
"Why do you only have hair on your head? Oh! Why are you sooooo tall? Do you have wings? Can you use magic? What are those things in your hands? And why are you-" Pinkie got cut off by Tempest stumbling over his own feet.
The Sentinels all step back and look confused while Phantom yells to the pink pony, "What just happened? How did you do that?"
The pink pony responded while bouncing over to Phantom, "What do you mean? I could always do that, I just never thought about it. But first! What is your favorite flavor of ca..." Applejack, Rainbow, and Twilight rushed over to the pink pony and covered her mouth with their hooves before she could finish.
Twilight gave an apologetic look and said, "Sorry about her! She is just very excited to meet new pon..uh creatures. And it is just better to accept the impossible things she does rather than question it. I think both of us owe an explanation, but first, we should reintroduce ourselves since everpony is up now."
Phantom gives Twilight a suspicious look but gives in, then looks to his team and asks them to all come to one side of the clearing. The team walks over and organizes themselves in front of their audience. Briefly they discuss if they should introduce themselves with the code name or their nicknames given to them at camp.
The ponies walk over to Fluttershy to comfort her as the Phantom team converses. They talk to each other as the ponies look at them with curiosity and worry.
When they finish talking to each other, they decide that since they are in a foreign land that their nicknames may make more sense than their code names. However, when the group finished conversing, the ponies noticed that the man named Phantom didn’t seem very happy after the talk.
Phantom addresses the ponies, "Alright since we are not from here we agree that introductions are in order. However, due to the nature of our job and the rules that we must follow, we cannot give you our names. We can give you our nicknames or our code names assigned to us. Do you understand that?"
All the ponies take a step back from hearing the strange statement. Twilight looks at the ponies around her as they look back at her with worry in their eyes. Twilight turns to the four men and asks, "Okay, but what is your job that prevents you from telling us your name?"
Phantom looks at the ponies and with a serious face tells them, "I can't tell you that, but I can tell you that as long as we are here, we will do no harm to those that are friendly. Now should we start with introductions?"
Twilight nods and looks to her friends to see if they want to speak first. However, after no volunteers she nominates herself to begin. "Thank you, my name is Twilight Sparkle." She looks back at the ponies around her. Then they go down the line of ponies.
"My name is Applejack, nice to meet y'all!" the orange pony states with a nod of her head and dip of her hat.
"My name is Rarity, and I must say your sense of fashion is very…unique to put it nicely." the white pony says while she curtsies.
“This is the standard issue service uniform with some modifications by me. However, I wouldn’t call this fashion, we wear this so it is harder to see us in combat.” Tempest said, proud of his handy work in the uniforms.
“Ah, I see.” Rarity responds as she winces from the color of the uniforms.
“Ahem” the blue pony called out while looking at Rarity. "The name is Rainbow Dash, don't forget it," The Rainbow Dash says as she glares at the four men, barely suppressing her suspicion and disdain.
"I'm Pinkie Pie, nice to meet ya!" the pink pony says with a grin as her hair poofs out.
Finally, the last pony hides behind her pink mane and whispers something inaudible.
Phantom and the others look at the yellow pony with confusion, but Applejack interrupts their staring and says, "Don't worry there fellas! She’s just shy around new pon- creatures! Well most creatures. Her name is Fluttershy."
As everyone and everypony starts to relax a little, Tempest looks at Fluttershy with worried eyes and responds, "Huh, okay. Well I guess I'll start. I'm Tempest, but you can call me Hazzard. Don't ask. I am the team’s heavy weapons specialist and an equipment operator."
The others then begin their introductions. "I'm Silent Strike, but you can call me Smokey. I am our explosive specialist and navigator."
Wraith continued as the next in line. "I'm Wraith, but my team calls me Clip. I'm the team's eyes and ears on the field but also our long range specialist." All the members except for Phantom started to laugh a little as they grinned at Phantom, waiting for him to introduce himself.
Phantom stared daggers at the team as he introduced himself. "I'm the team leader. You can call me Phantom, and Phantom only. I am also the team medic although all of us are capable of doing anyone’s position."
Phantom finished introducing himself and Smokey started to joke and say "Captain, are you forgetting something, like how your nickname was Alex..."
Phantom almost instinctively clobbered Smokey around the head after that statement, saying, "Smokey I don't want to hear that name ever again after ASRF training."
At the aggressive display, all the ponies are surprised and take a step back but Fluttershy yelps and hides behind Rainbow Dash. The ponies give Phantom a quizzical look, then Twilight speaks up first. "Umm, Phantom, excuse me but what does Mr. Smokey mean? Also, what is the ASRF?"
Phantom looks back at the ponies while the other Sentinels try to stifle a laugh, clears his throat then says, "Well I can only tell one of those. And that was what Smokey was referring to, which was my nickname that was given to me during training. In the military, most people get a nickname for something they did or what they look like. Most of the time it is not a positive thing. For example..."
Phantom looks at Silent Strike then says, "Smokey over here got his name by having multiple modified Nebelbombe grenades, stolen form the Germans, explode in his hands. Somehow he kept his hands in one piece, so we gave him the name Smokey."
As the ponies listen to Phantom, Rainbow Dash chuckles a little as Twilight responds, "If that is the case then what about your name?"
Phantom sighs as he responds, "Well mine was just a mispronunciation of my middle name and no one has let me live it down. But now is not the time for stories, it is about time we gave you an explanation. But while I explain what happened to us, Tempest, I need you to check all the equipment and make sure it works, even the SCR-54."
Then the Phantom goes on to explain what happened to them before they got to Equestria, while Tempest tended their equipment. "We were sent on a mission to meet a VIP that had intel on the German movement. However, what we didn't know was the Germans had followed the VIP to the set rendezvous point and set up an ambush to kill the VIP and us. But as they ambushed us a bright light engulfed us and before we knew it we were in a forest of unknown origin. Then we heard you and didn't know if you were hostile or not so we planned to ambush you for intel. "
After the explanation Phantom calls out to Tempest "How is our equipment?"
Tempest replies, "Almost done, just need to check the SCR-54." Tempest then goes to his rucksack and pulls out a fairly big wooden box and opens it up. It looks like a SCR-54 but fitted for longer ranges. But as Tempest turns a few nobs, flips a few switches, and puts on a small headset, he doesn't move for a few minutes until Phantom calls out to him.
Then he starts to slowly turn to Phantom and says "Captain, we have a problem."
Phantom gives him a confused look and asks, “What is it?”
As the other Sentinels and the ponies wait in bated breath, Tempest looks down and then says with a serious tone, “Sir, I sent out a test frequency to test the audio to see if it still worked. However, I got a response.”
After that statement all the Sentinels developed serious faces and Phantom asked, “Who or what responded?”
Tempest sighs and responds gravely, “The Germans.”